#stan on the other hand likes to collect things

[thereareeyesinsidethetrees]

Stan Twin Headcanon #3

Ford likes to leave little gifts for Stan around the shack/Stan O’ War II, because it���s easier than just giving them to him.

Stan, not one to be outplayed, starts leaving trinkets in place of the gifts for Ford to find later.

They never talk about it, it’s an unspoken thing they do.

Bonus:

When Ford is upset with Stan, he still leaves things for him. It’s just that he leaves things like plastic spiders and animal teeth instead of his usual gifts.

Stan just doesn’t leave gifts at all when he’s upset with Ford (the spiders do not help)

[hyunniesgirl]

I wanna be yours

Pairing: Bangchan x fem!reader

Summary: it was all a game to him, until all he could think about was you. He wanted to have all of you. Ruin all of you. Love all of you.

Or, the one where Chan is a cocky asshole who's going out with you just for fun and ends up falling in love.

Slightly inspired in the movie 10 things I hate about you.

Genres: angst, smut, fluff

Words count: 10,991

Masterlist

This content is +18 ONLY, minors do NOT interact!

Warnings: Corruption kink(kinda), dry humping, fingering, blowjob, loss of virginity, unprotected sex, pet names(princess, baby), Chan is cocky as fuck(and I'm here for it, stan cocky Bangchan), reader gets kinda insecure close to the end(let me know if I missed something)

A/N: should I be answering my requests or updating my series? Yes, did I spend too much time in a super long self indulgent oneshot? I did. It was supposed to be just smut with corruption kink 😭 turns out I can't write the porn without the plot.

It all started as a game for him. He just didn't guess how much you would mess with his head.

Bang Chan doesn't care much about college, with a promising career in music, he's just attending classes so his parents won't nag him too much.

That means he's bored all the time.

So when Jeongin, his youngest friend, begged him to win his girlfriend's sister over and date her for a bit, he almost accepted right away, yearning for some fun. But he didn't, not before knowing who you were.

That's how he ended up here, trying to find you in the middle of communication class. He didn't need to look too much, from Jeongin’s description, he could find you in the blink of an eye.

“A pretty girl, probably wearing black or some neutral color and she'll probably be in a corner. She's very shy, when you speak to her don't be too straightforward, you may scare her”

The way Jeongin described you didn't show any ill intent and he was always a good guy, that's why Chan considered accepting his offer in the first place. He must have his reasons for almost kneeling in front of his friend, asking for him to date you.

Chan sits behind you, observing every movement you make. You're indeed pretty and you really are shy. He notices how you want to raise your hand every time the professor asks a question, but you always hesitate and someone speaks over you. Every time you try to speak, some rude person cuts you and instead of getting mad, your face turns red and you shrink in your seat, trying to make yourself even more invisible.

There's something about you, Chan can't tell what it is, but it's something amusing about how you behave. Someone like you could have every guy in this university wrapped around your little finger and every girl wanting to be your friend.

As soon as the class ends, Chan sends a text to Jeongin, telling him he will do it. He doesn't waste time, waiting for everyone to get out of the classroom while you're still collecting your things.

“Hey”, he says out of nowhere, making you jump and look at him with huge doe eyes. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you”.

He kinda did want that, though, curious to see how you would react, he thought maybe you would raise your voice and curse him, but you reacted as calmly as possible.

“It's okay”, you mumble.

You keep organizing your things, trying to ignore his presence.

“So, I wanted to ask if you can let me borrow your notes”, he asks, making puppy eyes.

You turn back to him and Chan can almost see the gears turning inside your head.

“Why does he want my notes if he just attended the same class?” It's written all over your face.

“I pulled an all nighter studying for another class and kind of dozed off earlier”, he lies, smiling sheepishly while scratching the back of his neck.

You stare at him for a bit, pondering if you should say yes, actually, let's be real: can you even say no?

This is Bang Chan, handsome and popular, everyone knows him and the other two guys from 3racha. The last you heard, he didn't care much about classes since he's already progressing in his music career so you still don't understand why he wants to borrow your notes.

“Yeah, okay”, you nod, deciding to agree so this conversation can be over soon. You pull your notebook out of your bag and hand it to him. “Just make sure to give it back by next class”

“Sure, thanks”, he gives you a big bright smile that makes you gulp while staring at him, just a few minutes in his presence and you already know something very important: this man is dangerous.

You look around awkwardly, not knowing what Chan wants more. He's just standing there, staring at you.

“I'll get going then”, you sigh, feeling exhausted by this whole interaction.

You turn around, walking to the door, leaving Chan there, dumbstruck. Jeongin was right, you have no social skills, but you're much more entertaining than he made you out to be.

—

You're having lunch with Yuna, your sister, and Jeongin, her boyfriend, in the cafeteria. You like spending time with them, they are probably the only people you feel comfortable around in this university.

You met Jeongin three months ago. Your sister came home giggling like a child on Christmas, sat on your bed and told you she got a boyfriend.

You ran to your door, closing it after checking that your parents weren't around. There's only one rule in the house: your younger sister must not date before you do.

Your parents are not conservative or anything like that, they just had you two later than other parents, so they are very overprotective. You don't know exactly the reason why they set this rule, maybe it's because they are sure you're never going to date.

Yuna is your best friend, she was a sickly child so all those interactions and fights that normal sisters have, you didn't. You spent most of her childhood and a huge part of yours by her side in the hospital. Fortunately, she was able to go back to a normal life by the time she was becoming a teenager, she was always a social butterfly even in the hospital everyone loved her.

You always thought it was unfair that she had to wait to have a boyfriend simply because you are not interesting enough or can't even hold a conversation properly without stuttering, but there was nothing you could do about it. You even tried arguing with your parents about it but it always ended with them telling you to forget about it.

You see Jeongin waving to someone, something is off, they never invite anyone to eat with them. A tray is settled by your side and you look at the person who sits in the seat next to yours: Bang Chan.

“Hello again”, he smiles at you, a handsome smile with dimples showing and everything. He greets the others after.

You look at Yuna and Jeongin, she is frowning just like you and her boyfriend is eating like this is an ordinary situation in your daily lunch.

“Hi”, you sister answers, “I don't think we met before”

“Oh, yeah, I'm Bang Chan!” He stretches his hand so she can shake it. “Jeongin is an old friend and I have communication class with y/n”

“Ah”, she nods, looking at her boyfriend. You stay in silence, playing with your food, waiting for Jeongin to send Bang Chan away.

“Babe, I forgot I have a project due tonight”, Jeongin says, slapping the palm of his hand on his forehead. He stands up, “can you help me? Chan will keep y/n company.”

No. You don't want him to keep you company. Your eyes widen and you stare at your sister, trying to send her a mental signal so she won't let you alone with him.

What you don't see, it's that she has already caught up on the way Bang Chan is looking at you and she might think she understands what's happening.

“Okay, yeah. Take care of her”, your sister says, smiling apologetically to you while she gets up and follows Jeongin out of your sight.

You should just throw your food away and go to the library, maybe you can eat a sandwich.

“Would you like to go on a date with me?” You hear Bang Chan's voice before you can put your plan into practice, turning around to look at him with the most terrified face he ever saw on someone. “Ouch, does the idea scare you so much?” He jokes.

“Why would you want to go on a date with me? We just met yesterday”, you point out, holding yourself back so you won't just stand up and run away.

“I find you interesting, it's just a date so we can get to know each other better”, he shrugs. He's so nonchalant about it, while you're freaking out inside.

“I don't think that's a good idea, I'm not good at keeping conversations, you'll get bored”, you say frantically. You just didn't expect him to laugh.

“I can do all the talking, I love to talk"

Chan knows this move is risky and there's a high probability you won't accept, but he just felt like asking you at that moment.

“Are you sure you won't get bored?” You ask.

His eyes widen and he nods, are you really considering it?

You are, obviously. You bet no one could ever guess, but Bang Chan is your ideal type, actually he is probably everyone's ideal type.

He has the kindest smile you have ever seen and the way his eyes turn into crescents when he's smiling makes your legs weak. He met you yesterday, but you know him since 3racha performed in the university’s festival last year. Since the first time you two crossed paths, everything about him, appearance wise, seemed appealing: his dark eyes, his smile, his dark curls, his broad shoulders and his muscular body. That's why you freaked out so much when he spoke to you yesterday, you never thought he would give you the time of day. So you would be dumb to reject his offer.

“Okay”, you nod, handing your phone to him. “You can put your number there, I'll text you so you can save my contact”, you say and he stares at the device for a few moments before picking it up and typing his number.

This was easier than he thought.

—

“Do you have pepper spray with you?” Your mother asks for the 30th time in the last hour.

“Yes, mom. I'm going on a date with another student, he's not a criminal”, you tell her and your father tsks.

“There are alot of students that commit crimes”, he says.

“I know”, you sigh, “don't worry, I have pepper spray, emergency numbers and I'll turn on my localization”

Your sister is watching the scene unfolding in front of her, while she chuckles.

“You shouldn't laugh, if I start dating you will go through the same thing when it's your time”, you whisper at her and she sighs.

“You're not going to this date just so I can officially date Jeongin, right?”

You grin.

“You think too highly of me, I'm not that selfless”, you hear the sound of a horn in front of your house, “I'm going on this date because he's hot”

Chan thought you were pretty in your everyday clothes but after seeing you ready for your date he just couldn't take his eyes off you. You're wearing a little sundress with thin straps holding your much too generous and low cleavage. Your hair is down and your lips are red with lipstick.

He's waiting for you outside of the car so he can open the door for you, but when you stop in front of him, he just doesn't move.

You frown, waving a hand in front of his face.

“Are you okay?” You ask and he snaps out of his daze.

“Yeah, you're just too pretty”, he tells you honestly, “I just couldn't believe I'm so lucky”

You feel your skin hotter, you're sure your whole face must be red like a tomato.

The restaurant you are going to have dinner at is a bit further than you thought, it takes at least one hour by car to get there.

“Were all the places close to the city closed?” You try making a joke and he smiles.

“Considering your personality, I thought you would like this place better”, he tells you while you go in. A person greets you two, leading you inside. There's no open space, the building is full of rooms and you're guided to one of those. There's a glass wall in the back of the room with a view to a lake and a waterfall, there's colorful lights everywhere, making it even more beautiful.

“So, when I was searching for a nice place to go on a date, I came across this one.” Chan starts speaking and you notice there's a small stove on top of the table. “There's no attendants, so we will cook our own food and only call them if we want more servings”, he explains, pulling the chair so you can sit.

“Oh”, you feel a weird feeling on your stomach, are these the butterflies your sister told you about? You never knew something like this existed and the fact that he was attentive enough to take your shyness into consideration while choosing the place of your date makes you melt inside. “Thank you”, you tell him after sitting.

You don't shut up the whole night. This is the first time you feel so comfortable with someone other than your family.

“So, you want to work with entertainment?” He asks surprised.

“Yes, I really like the whole thing about managing an artist, it sound exciting”, you smile happily, “who knows, maybe one day I can manage 3racha”

“You have heard 3racha?” Chan asks, surprised.

“I really like your music”, you tell him, “besides, everyone knows about you guys”

“Yeah, but I didn't know you knew about us”, he smiles charmingly, leaning on the table while clasping his hands. “So does that win me some points? Maybe a kiss?”

You already are red because of the wine, now you feel your whole face hot. You're already feeling a bit out of it, not drunk enough to make a bad decision but definitely drunk enough to lose a bit of your shyness.

“I don't know how to kiss”, you say simply, no further explanation.

Chan almost chokes on the air he just breathed, he didn't think you would be so blunt about it. Curiously, he finds your innocent face while saying that too enticing.

“I can help you with that”, he says, tilting his head and winking.

“Would you really?” You ask and he nods. “Like now?”

Chan didn't expect that to happen so soon, especially with someone as shy as you. But he won't refuse your offer.

“Are you done?” He asks, eagerly, standing up and you nod. Chan stretches his hand to you, waiting for you to hold it.

He takes you to his car, helping you get in and fastening your seatbelt. He's not in his right mind, not at all, he didn't even drink so why is he so excited? He doesn't think he ever felt this way about a kiss. He drives for a while, looking for the drive in movie theater he had read about while looking for the restaurant.

After fifteen minutes he parks his car behind others, there are a lot of people there to watch the movie.

You have your hands on your lap, fidgeting with your fingers nervously. It's so endearing how innocent you are.

“Would you like to take a seat?” He asks and you frown, looking around and then looking at him. You are already seated.

He tilts his head, chuckling and patting his lap. You nod so fast, it's embarrassing. He smiles, seeing you climb on top of him, legs are over the cup holder, you're using him as a literal seat.

“You never kissed anyone?” He asks, while you adjust yourself on top of him, his breath hitting your neck, making goosebumps rise all over your body. You shake your head, feeling a bit insecure, what if you are no good?

Chan bites on his lower lip, shifting a bit so you won't feel his hardening cock under you, you're just too cute, too sexy.

“Okay, I'll go slowly, we can stop anytime you want”, he tells you, brushing his hand on your arm all the way to your neck, making you close your eyes to his touch. He pulls your face closer, touching your lips with his, it's warm and soft, it feels like heaven.

He brings his other hand to your cheek, caressing. He pulls back a bit, just enough so he can speak.

“Open your mouth for me, baby”, he tells you and you obey instantly, feeling his lips back on yours. His tongue brushes against yours and you whine, lifting your hands to grab on his shoulders to steady yourself, causing your ass to rub on his cock. Chan groans, making you flinch, did you do something wrong?

He notices your hesitancy, so he slides his hand to your waist, squeezing you in reassurance.

“Are you sure you have never done this?” He asks playfully and you smile, shyly.

“Can- Can we do it again?” You whisper, making him chuckle. Dear god, would he be able to stop this with just kisses?

“Did you like kissing me, princess?” He teases, seeing you blush. Chan wraps his arm around your waist, pulling you even closer. He lands a kiss on your exposed collarbone, tracing kisses up to your neck.

“You smell so good”, he tells you before leaving a kiss on your jaw, then on your chin and finally a peck on your lips.

“Must taste even better”, he thinks, smiling to himself.

Your phone starts ringing, taking you two out of that hazy atmosphere. You feel embarrassed now, not believing you actually acted that way. Going back to your seat, you pick up the call, it's Yuna.

“Mom and dad are freaking out because you stopped moving for too long”, she whispers. Shit, you forgot your localization was turned.

“Tell them you called Chan and I'm alright, my phone just died”, you instruct her.

“Yeah, got it, just hurry”

Chan probably heard the conversation, but you still feel upset that he started the car right away and drove fast back to your home.

When you arrive in front of your house, you're not sure if you should kiss him goodnight or just wave, both are awkward options for you, so you go with the one you want the most.

You grab his arm and pull him closer to you, kissing him on the lips. Chan is quite surprised with your bold action, but he won't complain, he can't get enough of your lips.

“I will text you when I get home”, he says after pulling away and you nod.

You get out of the car and walk to your door, stealing glances at Chan. He's giggling at your antics, watching until you are safe inside your house.

He should be thankful to Jeongin, he's finally having a good time.

—

Chan is taking his mission seriously, he's texting you everyday and even stopped seeing all his fuck buddies. This is the closest he ever got to a relationship, but you're not official yet.

Especially not when you're avoiding him like the plague when it comes to meeting face to face. You answer his texts normally but he has to literally hunt you down so he can find you in this damn university and if you see him before he sees you, it's game over, you'll hide immediately and he has to begin his search all over again.

This time, though, he caught you off guard. You are at the library, seated alone, trying to focus on the book you have in your hands.

He smiles to himself, knowing you can't escape anymore. Chan leans over, caging your body with his two hands around you, gripping the table.

“I missed you, baby”, he whispers and you shiver, feeling butterflies on your stomach.

“H-hi”, you say, closing your book and taking a deep breath.

You will not try and pretend you didn't hide from him for almost a week. But that's not your fault, it's your brain's.

After Chan left you home, you ran to your room, still feeling all tingly and hot from kissing him. Since Yuna didn't come to your room you guessed she was already asleep, so you took your makeup off, took a long bath and snuggled in your nice sheets.

The thing is: you had the most lewd, filthy, awfully good dream that night. You could never even say the things Chan did to you in that dream out loud.

You woke up sweaty, heavy breathing and panties soaked, this never happened to you before.

You just couldn't look at his face after that, you felt dirty and guilty with having those thoughts about such a nice guy.

“Am I wrong or were you avoiding me?” He asks, not moving from behind you.

“No- I wasn't”, you turn around to look at him, bumping into his face too close from yours. He glances at your lips, biting his lower one and chuckles. “I was just, hm, kinda embarrassed”, you tell him, aware that he's going to know right away if you try lying.

“Embarrassed about what?” He asks, tilting his head.

“I don't know”, you look away, trying not to give in and tell him about your dream.

“I think you should come to my place so we can talk about it”, he says and you choke on your own spit, struggling to function correctly. Did he just ask you to go to his house? Just you? And him? Just the two of you?

The apartment is not far from the campus, it's a maximum twenty minutes walk. The building is nice and modern, it absolutely matches what you had imagined Chan’s place would look like.

His apartment is huge, it's not possible that he lives there alone.

“I have three roommates, Jisung and Changbin you already know and Hyunjin, he's an arts major”

“Hwang Hyunjin? I know him, he's friends with my sister”, Chan nods, he forgot your sister dates Jeongin, she probably knows his entire group of friends.

“Do you want to drink something?” He asks, looking at you while you walk around the living room, looking at every corner but not at him.

“Water is fine”, you say, looking at some pictures he has with his friends. He always has that breathtaking smile that makes all your insides turn around.

“What about watching a movie?” He asks out of nowhere, sitting on the sofa. He looks at you, an arm resting on the back of the sofa.

“Sure”, you walk to him, sitting on the far corner. Chan has to bite back a laugh so you won't feel embarrassed, do you really think it's so easy for you to get away from him?

He turns on the movie, adjusting himself on his seat. You're really trying to pay attention to what's going on on the screen, but you just can't. Not when Chan's scent is all over the place, making you remember about your dirty dream.

He knows you're restless, he can see you fidgeting by his peripheral vision.

“Are you uncomfortable?” He asks, turning his head towards you, with a smirk plastered on his lips. “Maybe you can sit here again, I'm sure you are going to like it better”, he pats on his lap.

You feel your face red.

“Stop teasing”, you mumble, pouting, “that's not nice”

He chuckles. If you're not coming to him, he has no problem going to you, so Chan slides his body closer, making you stare at him with a frown.

He raises his hand to your face, cupping it and caressing your cheek.

“Tell me you don't want this, princess, I'll stop”, he says. But you want this more than anything in the world, how could you not?

You lean a bit, trying to close the gap between your mouths. Oh, how much Chan missed your soft lips, he felt almost like going through a withdrawal staying so long without kissing you.

You learn fast, your mouth opens right away after your lips touch. In a bold move, your tongue is the one to look for his first, making him groan. He puts his right hand on your thigh, squeezing it harder than he predicted, but he didn't predict the bite you would give on his lip at that exact moment.

Chan grabs your hip, pulling you up to his lap, this time with a leg on each side of him. You're looking at him in that innocent way when all he has on his mind are the dirtiest thoughts. He caresses your thigh, sliding his hand to grab your ass and pulling you closer to him.

“Will you tell me now, why you were embarrassed? You looked pretty fine when I left you home after our date”, he asks and you blush instantly, oh, you forgot about the reason you are here. You can't tell him about your dream, you'll die of embarrassment if you do.

“It was- nothing”, you lie, avoiding his eyes. Chan noticed this already, you always look anywhere but him when you are lying to him.

Maybe he'll have to make you tell the truth.

“Really?” He says, skeptical. “Then you were just being mean? Playing with my feelings after just one date?” He's teasing, he knows you'll give in eventually, it's just a question of time.

“No, I wasn't”, you argue, with a frown on your face, your lips shut tight in a pout.

“Baby”, he calls, your legs would definitely give out if he called you like that while you were standing. “I don't like liars”

Chan slides his hands up to your ass, grabbing a handful and pulling you closer. You can already feel something hard beneath you, making you shift and adjust on his lap, involuntarily seeking some friction. Your core is aching, just by staying so close to him.

“I'm not lying, that's mean”, you try changing the subject and he chuckles.

Chan comes closer, lips brushing against yours, his breathing hitting on your mouth, everything just making the wet spot on your panties grow bigger and bigger. He kisses you, a nice and soft kiss with his tongue caressing yours gently.

Chan notices that you're moving your hips slightly, trying to feel his cock. He smiles during the kiss, pulling away while putting his hands on your hips, guiding your movements to be harder.

“Hm”, you whine, feeling his hard on giving you the friction you're looking for. His hand cups your cheek, pulling you closer into a kiss again.

You never felt this way, like ever. You did masturbate but it's different to do it with another person. It's just so good to feel Chan's touch on your skin, his breathing, his muscular arms holding you. You feel your orgasm coming, you can't believe you're going to cum by just rubbing yourself on this man.

Chan knows you're almost there, that's when he grabs your hips steadying you, not letting you move further. He earns a whine from you, an angry look on your face.

“I will only let you keep going if you tell me why you were embarrassed and avoided me”, he says cockyly and you shake your head, trying to move again but his grip on your hips is too strong.

“I don't wanna”, you tell him.

“Then, I guess you won't be cumming today”, he shrugs. “At least, not with me”, he smirks to your face becoming even redder.

“You're such a meanie”, you whine, pouting, still trying to move again but he just won't let you.

“Are you going to tell me what I want to know?” He tilts his head.

You ponder for a moment, what should you do? It's not going to end here, if you don't tell him right now, you're sure he won't let it go.

“I- I had a dream”, you start, trying to gather some courage.

“Uhm”, he nods, “what about it?” He asks curiously, feeling strangely aroused by the way you're looking around, lips pulled into a line and the way you're speaking leads him to believe you're talking about a wet dream.

“Li- like one of those dreams”, so he was right, did you have a wet dream about him? That's interesting.

“Hm, you'll have to be more specific, princess”, he pushes, “I don't think I know what you're talking about”

“I mean”, you groan, dropping your head to his shoulder so you won't feel his eyes on you. “A sex dream… with you”, you whisper.

The grin on Chan's face after you finish saying that, is priceless. He can feel his cock twitching, he's eager to know more.

“Tell me more about it”, he presses, “I really wanna know what happened in that dream that left you so embarrassed”

“Please, Chan. Don't make me say it”, you beg, but he's not having it. He likes seeing you blushing and struggling to talk dirty, it's endearing.

“No can do”, he grabs your shoulder to pull you away so he can look at your face. “I promise I'll give a nice reward if you tell me”

You nod. If he won't drop it, then you have to try and earn something over your embarrassing situation.

“I- like- you ate me out”, you start and he smiles, he would indeed love to do that. “And I s-sucked you off, it was nice”, you stumble over your words in each sentence. Chan can only feel even more turned on, your lips are so soft, he can't even picture what it would feel like to have them wrapped around him.

“Keep going, princess. You're doing great”, he reassures you. Chan loosens the grip on your hips, guiding your movements back and forth once again.

“And you said all these dirty things to me, I can't say it out loud, please”, he smirks, pulling you even closer and pressing your covered core against his cock.

“Did I tell you how good it felt to have your pretty little mouth sucking on my cock?” He asks playfully and you nod, feeling the warmth creeping in your face again while that tingly sensation grows bigger in your lower stomach.

“Did we fuck?” He asks, feeling himself getting closer to cum too.

“Yeah”, you nod frantically with your eyes closed shut. “You fucked me on all fours and in this same position too”, you tell him.

“Oh? Did you ride me? Did you like it?”

“I did”, you struggle to make your voice come out, feeling too light headed to even speak properly.

“There's something more, right, baby?” He feels his cock throbbing, he's almost at his limit.

“Yes, you- you choked me a bit, I liked that”, and that sentence was enough to make Chan reach his orgasm, being followed by you right after.

He can't believe he really did cum in his pants, like a fucking teenager. It's your fault actually, how can someone make him cum like this and still look angelic and innocent? Like you never told him he choked you and you liked it, even though it was a dream.

Chan kisses you eagerly this time, his chest is feeling hot and he feels a weird sensation on his stomach.

“You shouldn't feel embarrassed about this kind of thing”, he tells you and you nod, because it's true, “if it makes you feel better, I'm sure I had worse thoughts about you”, he smiles, seeing you blush.

“Like what?” You ask, curiously.

“Oh, I won't tell you”, he shakes his head, “you would never look at me again if you knew all the dirty things I wanna do to you”

—

Another week went by and now you were not avoiding Chan anymore. He follows you around pretty much all day at school, stealing kisses and pulling you to empty classrooms to have make out sessions.

It's time for him to meet your parents, it's not something he ever did, he never dated anyone after all. It's a Wednesday night, he brought flowers and a bottle of wine. So five minutes before the set time, he's knocking at your door.

Your sister opens up, greeting him but you're nowhere to be found until he hears your voice from upstairs.

“Is he already here?” You sound panicked and your sister giggles.

“Yes! Hurry up”, she says and Chan hears something falling and making a weird noise. It was not loud enough to be a person so he's not worried you fell, but he finds it funny to think about you nervously stumbling around.

When you show up at the top of the stairs, he has to blink a few times to actually believe you're real. You look so beautiful, showing your nice legs in a short skirt and your shoulders in a tank top.

“Hey”, you greet him, looking at the things he has in hands and he finally regains his composure.

“Hi”, he gives you a peck on the lips, “this is for you” he hands you a bouquet of red camellias.

You stop for a second, you never received flowers. Before you can answer him, your father's head is popping out of the living room.

“Why is it taking so long for you to bring this guy inside?”, he asks grumpy, he's not too happy about you dating but there's nothing he can do about it.

Chan straightens himself, walking to your father to greet him.

“Good night, sir. I'm Bang Chan”, he clears his throat when your father doesn't say a thing, just staring at him. “I brought this for you”, he shows the wine bottle and your father takes it.

“At least you have good taste”, he nods to the wine bottle Chan stole from his father's collection.

He turns around, shrugging to you and you smile, listening to your sister's chuckles. You take his hand into yours, interlacing your fingers.

In the living room there's a woman that looks too much like you and your sister to not be your mother, she smiles kindly at you two.

She's less intimidating than your father so Chan's greetings to her are less awkward this time. As time goes by, your parents warm up to him, making jokes and even telling him about your childhood.

“The night went great”, you say while walking Chan to his car. “Thank you for coming”

“Your parents are great”, he says, leaning on the door of his car. He takes your hands in his and pulls you closer, wrapping his arms around your waist. “Thank you for inviting me”

He looks so good tonight, his dark hair is carefully styled and he's wearing much more formal clothes than usual, making him look like a prince.

“Can I have a good night’s kiss?” He asks, slyly, seeing you eyeing him up. You nod, putting your hands on his chest and closing the gap between your mouths. Chan's hands slide from your waist to your ass, squeezing slightly, he can't get too into it since he won't be able to go further than a kiss tonight.

You pull away from him when you have to breathe, his lips are so inviting you could kiss him all night long.

“I will see you tomorrow”, he tells you.

There's something wrong with his heart, it's beating so fast he thinks he may be dying. After driving away from you, he calms himself a bit. It's not possible that you were the cause of that reaction, right? This is supposed to be fun, he only has to date you for a while and then break up, no strings attached. So why does he feel such hurt in his chest after thinking about leaving you?

After one more long and sleepless night Chan realized something: he is in love. This feeling snuck in so unexpectedly he didn't even notice he was falling in love. Chan never fell in love before, so he can only guess that this is how it feels to love someone.

He notices every little detail about you, he jokes around all the time waiting to hear you laugh about something he says. Chan likes the way you smell, the way you smile, the way you just look at him so focused while he is speaking. He is in love with your personality, your cleverness, your kindness, your beauty is just a bonus that makes him even more in love with you.

He wants to confess to you, ask you to be his girlfriend, to never leave him.

He even asked for your sister's help to make something for you, maybe a song, he can definitely make something beautiful and romantic for you. Maybe he can cook too, he wants to make you feel appreciated.

He's waiting for your class to finish, seated on the bench in front of the classroom while scrolling through his phone.

He feels someone sitting by his side and before he can look, a kiss lands onto his cheek. Chan puts his hand on his face, blushing and you laugh seeing his reaction. You two did much more than just a kiss on the cheek, why is he embarrassed about it?

“Did you miss me?” You ask him and he rolls his eyes.

“Of course I did”, he grabs your hand, interlacing your fingers. “Should we go to my place?” He asks and you nod, standing up, pulling him to get up too.

It's still a bit weird that you two are together, you never thought liking someone as much as you like Chan could actually happen to you, you could even say you're in love. The only thing that still makes you doubtful is the fact that he didn't ask you to be his girlfriend yet, you have been going out for a month and you do everything together, so why hasn't he made it official?

You still have many questions in your mind, sitting on Chan's bed while he makes popcorn and you choose the movie you're watching tonight.

He enters the room, closing the door and turning off the lights, two water bottles and a huge bowl in his hands.

“What movie did you choose?” He asks, but you can't hear it, your mind is too loud. “Y/N? Are you alright?” He asks, snapping you out of your thoughts.

“Are we exclusive?” You ask out of nowhere, ripping the air out of his lungs.

“Yes”, he says firmly, “do you want to be with other people?”

Chan asked that, but he's holding his breath until you answer him, hoping you're going to deny. For a moment, you don't say a thing and seeing you hesitate makes his heart ache.

“No, I-” you try speaking, trying not to sound ridiculous, “I want to be exclusive, I just don't know if you want that”

Chan takes a deep breath, putting the things he has in hands on the nightstand.

“Of course, I want to”, he takes your hand into his, bringing it to his mouth so he can kiss the palm. He's feeling guilty, he's taking his time preparing a nice confession but you're feeling insecure. “I'm sorry I made you feel like I didn't want things to get more serious”, he climbs on the bed, getting closer to you, “let me show you that you're the only one I want, hum? Can I?”

You suck on your teeth, knowing exactly what is about to happen but you just can't say no to him, let's be real, you don't want to say no to him. So you nod, making him smile.

Chan is eager to have you, he has been for weeks, just waiting for you to be ready to give yourself to him. He cups your face, pulling you closer and kissing you.

He helps you lay down on the bed, towering over you while landing kisses down your neck. You feel him biting on your shoulder and he brings his hands to the hem of your shirt, pulling it up. His hands travel around your body, making you hotter.

“You're so pretty, princess”, he says, kissing your chest. You whine, he's taking too much time to get to the place you want the most.

“Channie”, you whisper, “please, touch me”, you ask him.

His smile grows bigger as he mumbles “your wish is my command”. Chan unbuttons your pants, pulling them down your legs, throwing it someplace in the room.

He slides his hand down to your core, your underwear is soaked. He pulls your panties down your legs and brushes a finger along your folds, collecting the wetness before inserting a finger inside, you arch your back to the feeling. It's delicious, but it hurts a bit. It's different from how it feels doing it alone.

“Is this okay?” He asks and you nod. “You're such a good girl, baby, all wet and ready for me.” He whispers, getting closer to your face again. I'm going to put another one”, he tells you. The sensation it's too much already, his fingers are too much.

“Chan”, you moan, “I'm gonna cum if you keep doing that”

“Oh? But I didn't even get to the better part”, he answers pressing his thumb on your clit, making circles.

“Fuck”, you whine.

His smirk grows while he keeps the movement of back and forth inside of you. Before he can tease you more, your legs are shaking and your tight hole is clenching around his fingers. You put your hand on your mouth, covering it so you won't make a loud sound, but he doesn't like that. He wants to hear how well he's fucking you.

“Let's not do that, okay? I want you to be loud, want to hear you scream my name” He says, pulling his fingers out of you and sliding them on his mouth. He comes closer, kissing your neck and face, helping you calm down after your orgasm.

Goosebumps rise all over your body, his kisses feel like fire on your skin, you thought you'd feel less horny after cumming, but you're still so turned on.

Chan kisses your chest, opening your bra. You feel embarrassed when he sees you completely naked.

“You're still dressed”, you point out, face red.

He gets out of the bed immediately, taking his shirt off and his pants too, crawling back to you in only his underwear. His cock is hard, outlined by the thin fabric of his boxers.

You feel the urge to touch him, maybe taste it. So you grab his length, making him groan.

“What are you doing, princess?” He asks, eyes closed from the pleasure of having your beautiful hands wrapped around him.

“I want to make you feel good”, you tell him, pushing his chest and making him fall on his back on the bed. You kiss his neck the same as he was doing to you, suddenly feeling possessive and sucking on the skin, leaving a few hickeys there.

You go down, kissing his chest and stomach, getting closer and closer to his throbbing cock. You pull his underwear down and his cock spring on your face.

“I just- you need to teach me”, you tell him. How can you look at him with such innocence in your eyes when you're about to suck him off?

“Hold the base”, he instructs, “now you can go up and down with your hand.”

 He feels your movements, making him groan. You are bolder than he gives you credit for, since you lick the head of his cock without being told to. You wrap his dick with your mouth, waiting for the next command.

“You can go up and down, princess, yes, like that” he moans, feeling his cock being embraced by your warm mouth.

Chan feels like exploding any time now, weeks of pent-up sexual tension being released. He sees you rubbing yourself on his bed while sucking on him, that just makes him crazier, he wants to make you feel good now, he can let you do the same for him another time.

“Baby”, you hear him say and you stop your movements. “I won't be able to last long with your soft mouth doing that, I need to feel you around my cock”

You nod, letting go of his cock and climbing up, stopping on top of Chan.

“I wanna be on top”, you say confidently.

“Let's do it slowly okay? I don't want to hurt you”, Chan tells you and you agree.

He grabs the base of his cock, brushing the head on your folds, trying to wet it enough to make it easier for you.

It feels like heaven when his cock finally slides inside of you, you're so tight he feels like he can cum at any moment.

Chan sees the pain in your eyes, he doesn't move, “do you want to stop?” He asks worriedly, putting his hands on your hips to stop you from moving but you shake your head.

You keep pushing it in, trying to relax. Chan kisses you, massaging your breasts to help you relax a bit.

When the painful part is gone and you're feeling all the good sensations back, you don't think you can stop, it's too addictive. You start riding on him freely, hands taking support on his chest and head thrown back, the pleasure is just too much, you'll be coming soon.

“Fuck, you look so good riding me, princess”, he says, feeling his own high almost catching him.

“Oh, Channie, I'm gonna cum”, you whine, fastening the movements of your hips, “please, oh, your cock feels so good”

For someone who couldn't talk about a wet dream a few weeks ago you sure talk dirty in real life, Chan chuckles, feeling you clenching around him and when you squeeze his cock for the last time he cums too, filling you up.

You collapse on top of him, breathing heavily. Your eyes are heavy, you're not sure if you can stay awake. Chan caresses your back and plays with your hair, making you fall fast asleep.

You wake up feeling just a bit sore. You're on cloud nine, the night was amazing. When you open your eyes, there's no one in the bed with you. You wrap yourself in the blankets trying to find and collect all your clothes scattered around the room.

The delicious smell that embraces your nose the moment you step out of the room, is enough to make you drool.

Chan is in the kitchen, dressed in nothing but sweatpants and an apron. That's right, he's shirtless. You're feeling bold today, so you get closer to him wrapping your arms around his waist in a back hug.

He lets out a laugh, putting his hand over yours and turning off the stove. He turns around, hugging you.

“Did you sleep well?” He asks, kissing your forehead and you nod, snuggling in his embrace.

“Why didn't you wake me earlier? I woke up missing you”

“Ow, my baby is so needy”, he teases, making you pout. “I was making you, breakfast”

“Hm”, you look at what he was cooking.

“How are you feeling?” He asks, a bit worried, it was your first time after all.

“I'm doing great”, you smile, “just a bit sore, but it's nothing”

He nods, putting his hands on your shoulders and turning you around.

“I'm happy to hear that”, he kisses the top of your head, guiding you to take a seat on the table. “Let's eat so we can go for another round then”, he smirks.

—

“Jeongin is coming here today?” You ask your sister and she nods frantically while fixing her hair.

“He's coming to ask dad's permission to date me”, she giggles excitedly.

“Alright”, you smile seeing your sister so happy.

You're the one opening the door for Jeongin while your sister is getting ready, he's clearly nervous but he's trying to keep his smile.

“Hey!” You give space for him to enter, “Yuna is almost done”

He nods, looking around. Your sister comes down minutes later, leading Jeongin to the living room.

Your father is less hostile to him than he was to Chan, maybe it's because Jeongin is adorable.

After an hour of conversation, you go upstairs, you have a date tonight and need to get ready.

The memories from your night with Chan flood your mind making you giggle and kick your feet, they have been your most cherished thoughts lately. It's a struggle but you finally end your bath after probably an hour.

You walk back to your room, you're already late. However, you stop in front of your sister's room when you hear voices being a little bit too loud.

“You did what, Jeongin?” your sister's voice is a pitch higher than usual.

“I didn't think things would get out of hand”, Jeongin answers, are they fighting?

“In what world did you think that was a good idea?”

“I was desperate, I'm not proud of that”, he answers back.

“There's no excuse for you to ask Bangchan to date my sister”, she tries speaking lower but you still can hear them. Your whole world crumbles with that one sentence, what does she mean by that?

“I didn't do it to be mean, I know how hard it is for your sister to get to meet new people, I thought it would benefit the both of us”, he tries explaining. Your heart is beating too fast, the throbbing in your ears grows stronger and your legs are giving out.

“How am I supposed to tell her now? She is so happy” Yuna cries out. “Don't come any closer, get out of here”, you panic instantly, they can't see you there. But you're too slow, when you finally manage to move Jeongin is swinging the door open. He stops on his tracks, turning white on the spot.

“Y/N-”, he tries to speak, but you run to your room before he can say anything else.

You can't believe this is actually happening to you, you thought that someone finally liked you but everything was a lie? That's not possible, right?

You are going to go to Chan, you two have a date, and he is going to tell you that Jeongin is lying, that he was just joking.

The uber to Chan's apartment doesn't seem to show up fast enough and the ride there couldn't be slower. You're restless, fidgeting with your fingers and shaking your legs.

You pay the man, practically running out of the car and running upstairs. The person who opens the door is not Chan but Changbin, you met him a few times when you were visiting the apartment.

“Hey, y/n”, Changbin greets you. “Chan is not home, but he will be here soon, I heard you have a date”, he says, letting you in.

“I'm going to wait for him in his room”, you tell him, too disturbed to worry about proper manners.

You walk back and forth in the room, anxiously waiting for Chan's arrival. You hear his voice after twenty minutes, he's talking to his friend in the living room when Changbin tells him you're there.

You can hear the fast footsteps leading to where you are, you take a deep breath, trying not to cry.

“Hey, baby”, Chan smiles at you, dropping his bag on the floor and walking towards you with open arms. “Did something happen?” He stops, noticing your face.

You stare at him for a minute, brows knit together and eyes trying to find the least bit of sincerity in the time you two spent together.

“Did you ask me out as a favor to Jeongin?” You ask and his standing falter, how did you find out?

“L-let me explain”, he says, taking a step closer to you.

“So you did”, you feel the tears trying to escape from your eyes.

“Please, just… just hear what I have to say”, he asks, trying to hold your hand, but you pull away from him.

“I don't want to hear a thing from you”, you tell him, running your hands through your hair.

It really was all a lie. How could you be so dumb?

You walk past him, trying to get out of the room, go anywhere but there. But Chan grabs your arm, making you stop in your tracks.

“Please, don't leave”, he begs. You feel a pang in your chest, but it doesn't make a difference since you're already hurting too much.

“You have no right to ask me that”, you pull your arm out of his grasp and walk out of the apartment.

It would be too humiliating to enter the uber while bawling your eyes out, so you decide to walk. You walk for a long time before your feet start hurting and your eyes are burning from how much you cried. You can't believe you really let yourself fall pray to such a scheme, you thought you were smarter than that.

It's obvious you only fell for it because it's Chan, you were attracted to him since the first time you laid eyes on him. You try to believe that it wouldn't be that easy to trick you if it was anyone else.

After at least two hours, you finally reach your house and you're feeling utterly miserable. You greet your parents and walk upstairs, anxiously searching for your room so you can finally let yourself fall and cry as much as you can.

Your sister is seated on your bed, biting on her nails. She stands up as soon as she sees you.

“I'm really sorry”, she says, teary.

You sigh, feeling the weight on your chest even heavier.

“It's not your fault”, you tell her. You start to undress, looking for your pajamas so you can snuggle on your bed until all of this passes.

“I shouldn't have started dating before you”, she whines.

“I don't blame you, so stop doing that to yourself”, you say, even though you feel a bit of resentment because Jeongin likes her truly, he likes her because she's her. Of course no one's going to like you, you're… you.

“But”, she bites on her lower lip, not sure if she should say this, “I think Chan really likes you-”, she stops talking when you give her the meanest glare you ever threw in someone's way.

“I don't want to hear it”, you say.

“He even asked help so he could confess to you in a way you would like”, she continues.

“I'm not going to repeat myself”, you say and your sister knows that tone too well, it's better for her to stay silent for the time being. “If you're done, I would like to be alone”

Yuna nods, glancing at you all the way to the door.

You collapse on your bed, finally able to cry your eyes out without people looking at you in a weird way. This is the moment you realize how much you love Bang Chan, the pain you're feeling is greater than anything you ever felt in your whole life, you truly don't think you'll be able to survive this.

Chan is an idiot, he knows this and you are right to never look at his face again. But even though he knows you're right, he can't accept the thought of you leaving him.

He tried calling and texting you, you blocked him. He tried talking to your sister, she cursed him out and told him to leave you alone. She and Jeongin are on bad terms right now but they didn't break up yet.

He tried to find you in the university, but you didn't show up for the entire week, he just doesn't know what to do.

“You are an idiot”, Hyunjin says after listening to the whole story, “you should have told her about it while you still had time”

“I didn't know I was in love”, Chan runs his hands through his hair, “not until it was too late”

His friend sighs, he just can't see Chan like that anymore. He's just miserable, he looks like he's dying and Hyunjin doesn't doubt it could actually happen at this point.

So as a good friend, he takes this matter into his own hands and calls your sister, trying to convince her to listen to Chan and maybe forgive Jeongin too, Hyunjin is tired of him whining all day long.

“Did you really call me here for this?”, Yuna asks, ready to grab her things and go home.

“Hear me out, okay?” He says. “I know what they did was wrong but they regret it, Jeongin even told you about it”

She huffs, crossing her arms.

“He told me because I was talking about how Chan wanted to ask y/n to be his girlfriend”, she says. “He felt guilty, he would have never told me about it otherwise”

“Chan really likes y/n, he really wants to be with her”

Yuna sighs, she knows that. There was no way Chan could fake the way he looked at you.

“She's not going to believe that”, Yuna says, “y/n is heartbroken, she's not even going to her classes. She just stays in her room all day, crying’

“There's nothing better to fix her broken heart then”, Hyunjin points out, “let's help them meet, they can talk things out that way”

“She doesn't want to see him”, Yuna sighs, “but I do think this is the best solution”

“Okay, I'll text you the day and time, just bring y/n, Chan will take care of the rest”

Yuna nods, collecting her things but before she can stand up, Hyunjin's voice sounds again.

“About Jeongin-”, he starts, but she cuts him off right away.

“This whole mess started because of Jeongin”, she takes a deep breath, “after y/n and Chan resolve this matter I'll see what I'm going to do about him”

Yuna turns around, leaving Hyunjin there. At least he got Chan a chance, he can't save everyone.

Chan can't take it anymore, he has to see you. So he musters all the courage he has and goes to your house. It doesn't help that it's 2 a.m. so everyone is sleeping, except you it seems, since there's light coming from your room.

He begins throwing rocks at your window, trying to make you notice him and after a few tries he sees your face popping out.

Chan wishes he didn't come at all, your face is puffy so he knows you have been crying and the way you're looking at him, it's just awful, he feels despicable. More than he has felt all this time without you.

“What do you want?” You ask, at least you didn't ignore him.

“Can you come down for a bit?”

You sigh, you don't actually want to, but you're afraid he'll make too much noise trying to convince you to go down and wake up the neighbors or even worse, your parents.

You close the window, he knew it would be hard, that you wouldn't want to see him. Before he can turn around and walk away, Chan hears the sound of the front door opening.

You are in your pajamas, holding yourself trying to protect your body from the cold air.

You stop in your tracks, looking at him with an intense gaze, like you can read all his thoughts and know about all his mistakes.

“How have you been?” He asks and you scoff.

“Are you here to survey my mood? I have been feeling like shit, what about you?” He remembers the first time he talked to you, how he wished to see you mad, now he regrets that. He never wanted to see you mad at him.

“I'm not well either”, he says.

You sigh.

“Now that we know how each other is feeling, you can go”, you tell him.

“Can you let me explain?” He pleads.

“Did you start dating me as a favor for Jeongin?” You ask and he sighs, nodding. “That's all I need to know, I would appreciate it if you don't come looking for me anymore”, you say, turning around and going back inside. Tears start running down your face while you go back to your room, when will this pain subside?

—

You are finally back at school, after moping around all day at home for an entire week, you decided it was time to get back to your life. Staying at home just made you feel worse, you didn't have a thing to distract yourself so you ended up thinking about Chan the whole time. That only weakened your resolve to forget about him, you avoided coming to school because you knew you would give in if he tried to approach you.

Your day goes by fast enough and you just want to go home to lay on your bed. You feel your phone buzzing, it's a message from Jeongin. You were so angry with Chan that you forgot to block him.

He should be begging to meet Yuna, so why is he asking to meet you? Maybe he wants your help to fix things between them.

You don't know why you decided to meet him, maybe it's curiosity to know why he did such a thing to you or maybe you want to look at his face and curse at him.

He arrives at the cafe at the set time, looking around for you and walking towards you when his eyes lock with yours.

“Hey”, he says, sitting in front of you. You don't say anything back, not in the mood to be polite.

Jeongin sighs, he expected this much.

“I wanted to talk with you about this whole situation, believe me I didn't mean to hurt you even though it ended up happening in the end-”

“I considered you my friend”, you say making him stop talking.

“I- I'm”, he says, voice a pitch higher.

“Friends don't do what you did”, you say and he nods.

“I know it was an ill executed plan, but my intentions weren't bad, I swear”, he tells you.

“And do your intentions matter if I was the one hurt in the end?” You ask, angrier now.

“No”, he answers. “I'm truly sorry, I swear, I just caught you staring at Chan more than once. I thought this would be good for us both but I was clearly wrong”

You huff, exhausted. You start collecting your things to go home but you hear Jeongin's voice once more.

“Chan really likes you, he fell in love with you”, he says and your heart skips a beat, it shouldn't be behaving like this, not after the heartbreak you are going through.

“I don't care, he lost his chance”, you answer firmly, even though you know it's not true.

“Are you sure?” Jeongin asks, “are you sure you won't regret it? Not let him explain or not hearing him out?”

You glance at him once more, before standing up and walking out of the cafe.

Your mid terms are finally over, that means, you don't have anything to study so you're stuck with your thoughts. Your phone buzzes in your pocket, it's a message from Yuna, asking you to meet her in the arts department.

You reply, saying you'll be there in a moment. What is she even doing there? She's a business major.

The arts department is not far from yours, but it's emptier than you are used to. She asked you to meet in the first classroom of the second floor.

When you open the door, the first thing you see is Bang Chan. He looks awful, worse than you even.

You try going back, but he already saw you, so he stands up, coming closer.

“Don't leave, I'll do anything just… don't leave”

He's pale, and the eyebags he normally has are darker than usual.

“Are you sick?” You ask, worried. It's not like you can stop loving him in such a short period of time, of course you're worried.

“No”, he says, “I mean, I'm not feeling well, but I don't think I have an illness”

You nod, feeling awkward. It's been a while since you felt this way about him.

“Okay, then I'll get going”, you say trying to leave, but his voice stops you.

“I love you”, he is desperate, you can hear it in his voice. However, you're too petty.

“This was part of Jeongin’s plan too?”, you scoff, seeing his lips trembling.

He takes a deep breath, he deserves that, he knows he does.

“I really started going out with you because Jeongin asked”, he starts explaining, “but I fell in love with you, for real”

You feel your heart ache once more, he's about to cry, you can see it. But you're not sure if you can forgive him, even if what he's telling you is true.

“I don't believe you”, you say, shrugging, trying to hold your own tears.

“I will do anything to prove it to you, just say what I need to do for you to believe me”, he says, taking a step closer to you.

“I'm not sure if I'll be able to forget this or even forgive you, Chan”, you sigh, letting your heart speak and not your anger.

“I know I messed up, I don't deserve you I know that too”, he grabs your hand, “but please, I'll prove to you that I deserve a second chance, I'll earn back your trust”, he pleads.

You sigh, even after all this, it seems you still can't say no to him.

“I'm going to need some time”, you say slowly, “but I will give you a second chance, you better not ruin it”, you say.

Chan can't believe you're really going to try and forgive him, he can't ask for anything more.

“I won't disappoint you this time, I promise”, he says, kissing the palm of your hand, the same way he did before.

“Let's see about that”, you sigh, feeling your heart beating fast once again.

You may be making a stupid choice, but you'll only learn by making mistakes. You just sure hope this is not one.

A/N: If you like what I write please reblog or let me know in the comments, feedback gives me motivation to keep writing.

[sosa2imagines]

lucky-bucky-boy has a really good smutty one shot about being undercover with Bucky

"Undercovers"

Warnings- SMUT! Friends to lovers? -------------------------------------------

The air in the fancy casino, was thick with cologne and desperation. Bucky, ever the picture of charm and sophistication, in a well-tailored black suit, leaned closer to you, his voice a low rumble. “Enjoying the high life, doll face?”

You batted your eyelashes, channelling your inner actor. “Only because you're here, handsome.”

It was all part of the act. You and Bucky, have been working together for about two years. It had been a normal mission so far. Until you two were told, that you had to pose as lovers for the upcoming mission. You both were calm about it.

Flirting with Bucky was the easy part, as you two were close friends. A playful banter was a natural extension of your friendship.

Mr and Mrs. Stan, socialite couple with a penchant for gambling and questionable art collections. In reality, you and Bucky were after a stolen prototype weapon, rumored to be changing hands tonight.

Tonight, it was amplified, a performance for any potential buyers lurking around. You exchanged playful swats, whispered secrets, and Bucky even ‘accidentally’ brushed his hand against yours, sending a delicious shiver down your spine. All for the mission, of course you thought…so did Bucky. Right?

Hours bled into each other, a blur of clinking glasses, fabricated interest in dubious paintings, and a well-timed ‘win’ at the roulette table.

As Bucky went, to get drinks for you and him, some guy came over and started to talk with you. “Hey beautiful, what's your name?” The man asked, trying to flirt with you, Bucky was quick by your side, gripping your arm firmly, glaring at the man. “Leave her alone.” Bucky said through clenched teeth, his tone dripping with warning, the man seemed puzzled by his response.

“What's it to ya? Can't a man flirt with a beautiful woman?” The man retorted. Bucky let out a small murmur of annoyance, as he gripped your arm tighter and glared at the man again. “No, you can't.” Bucky said, he still couldn't believe that he was being this possessive over you, he had no right. Right? He couldn't stop the burning jealousy that was building in him.

“And I don't like someone touching or flirting with my fiancée! Get away, you understand?” Bucky said, and the man seemed to see the warning in his eyes this time, and finally nodded and started to walk away. The air crackled with nervous electricity and something else entirely.

Maybe it was the wine, or the sequined cocktail dress that felt like a second skin (and three sizes too small), but your stomach was doing loop-the-loops.

The possessive nature of Bucky was a major turn on for you. Your panties, were in a twist.

The night was a blur of champagne flutes, caviar canapés, and Bucky's expertly delivered charm. You danced close, your bodies brushing, sending shivers down each other’s spine. The playful flirting, you both usually reserved for sparring sessions, took on a whole new meaning under the chandeliers.

“You know...” Bucky murmured, his breath warm against your ear as you both waltzed, “this whole fiancé thing feels surprisingly believable.”

You scoffed, but blush heated your cheeks. “Maybe a little too believable, ‘Stan’.”

Soon, Valentina Fontaine the target began to approach you and Bucky.

“You ready, doll?” Bucky drawled, the black fabric straining across his broad shoulders. A playful glint danced in his steel-blue eyes. “As ready as I'll ever be, handsome…” you retorted, trying to project confidence.

Valentina was flirting heavily with Bucky, which made you see red. You wonder, if this is, how he felt before? She was ignoring you completely, and you had enough of her touching Bucky, who was highly uncomfortable.

You excused yourself and weaved through the throng, brushing against a waiter carrying a tray of champagne flutes. One ‘accidentally’ spilling on Valentina, as her guards rushed to clean her up, Bucky like a gentleman held her purse, making you roll your eyes, as he swiftly took the key from it.

Finally, your chance arrived. Valentina, took a bathroom break. Bucky, ever the smooth operator, distracted her bodyguards, while you slipped into her private dressing room. Jackpot. A hidden compartment in her vanity revealed a flash drive with incriminating data.

Back in your hotel room, adrenaline buzzed through your veins. Relief warred with a newfound tension. You'd gotten the intel, but the night wasn't over. Here, alone in this opulent cage, the charade started to unravel.

Bucky poured drinks for you and him, his gaze lingering on you. “Good job tonight...” he said, his voice rough.

A teasing smile played on your lips. “Always the charmer, Barnes.” But the compliment hung heavy in the air. You both circled each other, the playful dance taking on a new edge.

“So…any reason, you made the waiter spill champagne on Valentina?” Bucky asks with a mischievous smirk. “Any reason, you were possessive, when the guy was flirting with me?” you teased him back.

“I was looking after my future wife…” “I was looking after my future husband…”

“Well, partner,” you say, with a playful smile, tossing the stolen flash drive to Bucky, who catches it with a wink. “Mission accomplished.”

Bucky's eyes narrowed. “Indeed. Now, about that fiancé thing…”

He pulled you close, the suit jacket falling away to reveal the familiar worn t-shirt he wore beneath. Laughter escaped your lips as he dipped you a playful bow.

“Care to take it one step further, doll?”

One step closer, and his hand was on your cheek, his thumb tracing a soft path over your lips. “This,” he murmured, his voice husky, “this feels a little too real, doesn't it?”

And it did. The line between mission and something more had blurred. Your breath hitched. “Maybe it should...” you whispered before kissing him.

It started as a release; a surge of emotions bottled up for too long. But the kiss ignited something deeper, a fire fuelled by unspoken feelings and the thrill of the night. Clothes fell away, replaced by a desperate urgency.

As soon as your back was pressed against the bed, Bucky lost all self-control.

A growl emitted from his throat, low and rumbling against your mouth. The kiss was hard, a battle of tongues for dominance. An aggressive kiss, making you moan and Bucky’s cock to twitch mindlessly against your tummy.

Bucky pulls back, looking at you. He gently traces his finger over your face. “Mine…” He leans down and brushes his lips against yours, kissing you deeply.

You deepen the kiss, your hands gently sliding down his butt. He slides his hands down your back, his fingers lightly brushing against your butt, kneading them. His kiss becomes hungry, almost desperate, as if he wants as much of you, as he can get.

“You drive me crazy, doll face...” he murmurs against your skin. He leans back down and deepens his kiss, his touch more insistent, his hands sliding over your body. Bucky kisses along your collarbone, down towards your chest, his lips finding the sensitive skin between your breasts. His breath is warm against you, as he lets one of his hands wander lower, his fingertips lightly brushing between your legs.

His lips find the spot on your neck and you moan softly. His fingers find the spot in your cunt. You gasp and moan, your hands slide along Bucky's sides up to his hair, tangling in them.

“I'm gonna take good care of you, doll.” Bucky murmurs against your neck, as he kisses along your collarbone again, nipping and sucking until he's sure he's left a mark.

His hands took your breasts between his palms, kneading them, worshipping them. He took one of the hardened nipples between his lips, sucking it with a deep moan. “Bu…Bucky” you gasped. He nuzzled his face against your breasts before pulling his mouth away, with an obscene pop.

You moan and gently roll your hips against him, the anticipation almost driving you over the edge. He pauses as his eyes move over you, drinking in the sight of you, his breathing is heavy. “You're so beautiful...” he says, sliding a hand up your thigh to your hip and leaning down to kiss along your stomach, his warm lips moving slowly.

“Bucky…” you moan, your hands tangling in the sheets again. His tongue starts to move slowly, teasingly over you. You pull your bottom lip between your teeth, trying to stifle your sounds as he slowly circles his tongue around your clit, teasing your button.

Bucky lets out a low moan against you, as he leans back, hooking his arms around your thighs, pulling you closer, as he lowers his head and his tongue finds your center again, moving slowly.

You let go of the sheets, as your hands grip his hair, your back arching in pleasure, as he drives you closer with his tongue. “Bucky…” you gasp, your eyes closing as he brings you closer to the edge.

He can feel you're close, by the way your body tenses, the way your breathing changes. He moves his tongue faster, wanting to take you over the edge, pushing you closer and closer, until you let out a gasp and a shiver runs through you, as waves of pleasure wash over you.

Your body starts to slowly come down, your eyes opening. Bucky lifts his head, stroking your thighs, pressing little kisses to your abdomen, a smile curving the corners of his mouth.

He slides up, leaning down and kissing you slowly. You can taste yourself on his lips, as he kisses you deeply, gently rolling his hips against yours again.

You hook your legs around his waist, rolling your hips against his. You can feel his arousal and it makes you crave his touch. You pull him closer, deepening the kiss, your hands trailing down his back, your nails scratching him, as he keeps rolling his hips against yours.

He groans softly, the feel of you against him causing his breathing to get heavier. He pulls back from the kiss slightly. “I want you,” he almost whispers, kissing along your jaw.

You slide your hand between your bodies, caressing his hardened cock. “You have me,” you say, leaning up and kissing his jaw before nuzzling along his neck. His breathing becomes heavier, as you find that sensitive spot on his neck and he gently moans your name.

You tilt your head back, as Bucky kisses along your neck again, the anticipation building. He gently presses you down on the bed, his hands pressing against your thighs, his lips trailing kisses up your stomach.

He lifts his head, looking down at you. His eyes are dark with need. He reaches down and gently teases you with his fingers, watching the way your lips part to let out a soft moan, your body shifting slightly at his touch.

Bucky gently withdraws his fingers. He leans down and kisses you, before shifting to settle between your legs. You wrap your legs around him, trying to pull him closer. Bucky kisses you deeply as he pushes into you, your pussy takes all of him in. His thick length stretched your walls.

His breath catching in his throat, at the feel of you wrapped around him. He bottoms out with a groan, before pulling back out again. His hips soon found a suitable pace. You break the kiss, breathing heavily, as he starts to move against you slowly, his forehead pressing against yours again, his arms around you, holding you close.  

Bucky speeds up slightly, making your breathing hitch. He presses a little deeper and your nails slightly dig into his shoulders. “Bucky” you whisper, as he hits deep in your cunt, making all your thoughts scatter.

He leans back, looking into your eyes, his name on your lips, fuelling his need, his pace increasing as he buries his face in your neck. You can feel him getting closer, his breathing heavier, your name escaping his lips in a groan. You're close, too.

“Just let go, doll…” he whispers in your ear, his hips moving faster, his lips against yours. The words push you over the edge and you cry out his name, against his lips, as waves of pleasure wash over you. Bucky shudders, as he follows you over, holding you close to him.

You moaned into the kiss, as you came hard, “I'm... I'm gonna come...” he pants as he nears his climax. He spent himself inside you. Filling you up to the brim. He collapsed on top of you, catching his breath, burying his face in your neck.

You lay there for a while, panting, still wrapped in each other's arms. Bucky nuzzles into your neck, placing small kisses along your skin, making you shiver slightly.

He slowly rolls off of you and lays down beside you, his hand lightly caressing your side. You scoot closer into his side, your head resting on his chest as he wraps an arm around you, pulling you closer.

You close your eyes, as you feel his hand run idly up and down your back. You both lay there in a comfortable silence for a while. The line between playful banter and genuine affection blurred, leaving you and Bucky tangled in the sheets, the mission a distant afterthought. As dawn painted the sky a fiery orange, Bucky held you close, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips.

“Maybe we should practice this fiancé thing more often,” he murmured, his voice husky with sleep. You chuckled, tracing a finger across his metal arm. “Just between us, Barnes? I wouldn't mind.”

My pervert brain had to write about this.

TAGLIST- @imyourbratzdoll @blackhawkfanatic @ordelixx @sapphirebarnes @ilovetaquitosmmmm @winterslove1917

@differenttyphoonwerewolf @vicmc624 @thezombieprostitute @nekoannie-chan @emerald-writes @3xclusivemariii

[kkuraissante]

✧ ultimate bias ✧

In which y/n is a big fan of Sakura (ft. aespa!y/n)

[y/n confessing her love for Sakura during an interview]

“so, y/n who is your celebrity crush?” the radio host in front of her asked. 

hearing the question, the rest of her members looked at each other, sharing a knowing glance. “huh, well… I think some of the fans may noticed it based on my phone wallpaper, but my celebrity crush is sakura from le sserafim.” y/n admitted shyly, lightly scratching the back of her head.

“I actually became her fans during pd 48 and have been her fans ever since. You don’t know how happy I was when I heard that she will debut again into a new girl group after the disbandment. I cried so hard after watching the intro videos,” y/n confessed. 

karina laughed after hearing her comments, “yeah, you wouldn’t believe how crazy she is for sakura. she collected albums and merch, basically a hardcore fan”.

“no, but do you guys remember how she sneaked out of the dorm during our free time to attend izone fansign? It was legendary. She talked our ears off about sakura that day” giselle added, groaning at the memories. 

the host and members laughed hearing the remarks. 

“well, I mean, who could blame me, she was perfect. a literal angel.” y/n tried to defend herself. “hopefully I will be able to go to her fansign again” y/n sighed happily at the thought. 

“you heard it guys, you need to steal y/n heart from sakura” the host joked.

[y/n’s room tour during her vlog]

“hi guys, today I will be showing you my room” y/n waved at the camera, standing outside her bedroom door. 

“so, here is the entrance. this is a custom-made sign that I bought on the internet and essentials to keep my sanity,” y/n gestured to a red sign that read ‘yoo jimin do not enter unless permitted’ in the middle of the door.

opening the door, y/n waved her hand excitedly for the camera, “welcome to my sanctuary.”

“first thing first, this is my closet, it’s a little messy since we’ve been busy these past few weeks, but its usually not this bad, I promise!” y/n said seriously, raising her pinky finger up.

“here is my desk, with my gaming setup. I’ve been playing valorant and lol whenever I’m free. over there is my keyboard and guitar wall. the black guitar is a gift from jimin unnie and the white one is from taeyeon unnie. this is actually my first guitar that I bought with my money” y/n showed everything before raising a red fender Stratocaster, showing it proudly. 

“moving on, this side is the bed. it looks comfy right?” y/n shoot the bed before raising the camera upwards, showing the hanging shelf, filled with albums, mainly her senior and izone albums. “and here is my album collection. most of these are gifts from sunbaenim during promotion and the only albums that I bought myself are the izones one” y/n smiled proudly at the camera. 

“look, this one is signed by all members” she showed the bloom*iz album. “Sakura was so pretty during this era,”

“and this is my photocards collection” y/n opened a photo album. “it’s mostly Sakura but I have other people too. this one is my favorite,” y/n raised sakura perfect night pc, “she look so cute with the glasses right?  oh!  I also want to flex a little, are you curious? this is not sakura, but I really like it” y/n show off a chaewon photocard. “ I think this is one of the rare photocard and are sold very expensive, so i’m really happy that i have it. also, chaewon-ssi looks so pretty here"

“so, that’s all for my vlog. thank you for watching the video. I love you MY’s, byee” y/n blowed a kiss at the camera before the vlog ended. 

[karinanana]: y/n is literally one of us

[y/n_wife]: I never expect that I will finally see an idol that collect photocards

[fimmily222]: y/n is the biggest sakura stan. we have an idol piona!!

[amboya.amboya]: I know the rest of her members are tired hearing her fangirling over sakura. look how much she rambled about her throughout the vlog. 

[thirstyfory/n]: the rare chaewon pc is killing me

[y/n showing her things during live]

“hi! Welcome to my weverse live!” y/n grins at the camera in front of her before reading the comments on her phone. 

“unnie, what items has you bought recently?” y/n read out loud. she scratched her chin before standing up abruptly, “wait a moment guys, let me pick some stuff up” she apologized, moving out of the frame, towards her bedroom. after 5 minutes she came back, holding a bunch of stuff on her arms.

“sorry for the wait but I’m back! let me review all the things that I bought recently” 

“first thing! its a t shirt” y/n raised a white t shirt, “it’s very cute right? i bought it in Japan during one of our schedules”

“this hoodie is also bought in Japan” y/n raised a black chrome hearts hoodie, “now I have a matching hoodie with Sakura” she blushed slightly at the thought.

remembering that its live, she tried to change the subject, quickly picking up the next item which is a headphone accessory. “oh, I bought it because it look cool, like, why does sakura always wear the coolest stuff” y/n whined at the camera. “she’s just so perfect”

“and the last thing is this” y/n raised a big basket filled with knitting yarn and needles. “I’ve noticed that sakura has been knitting a lot recently and I want to also try it. maybe trying to give her a handmade beanie if i succeed later”

“this is the first thing that I make” y/n picked up what looks like a knitted leaf. “it’s for headphones, but I think I screwed it to the point its unrecognizable, it’s way too crooked and ugly. minjeong teased me the other day saying that a year old could do it better than me” y/n pouted, remembering the teasing that she has to endure from her members that day.

“let’s move from my bad knitting projects…”

[temmtamm]

D'you think Stan and/or Ford would be the type to have shrines in some way to reader? I'm a sucker for those,,

Stanley?? No. Multiple reasons. Doesn’t want to cops seeing and tracing who he really is with all his stolen identities from you, the kids might see it, his space is cluttered enough as is. It’s just a huge hassle. He’ll keep a few old Knick-Knacks of yours however. If you miss them that bad, he’ll just pay you to get another.

Stanford on the other hand—He had paintings, murals, wall decor, and stained glass windows of Bill Cipher. That’s not exactly a cheap thing to have. He’d have a little place stashed down in lab for it. He collects hair that fell off you or you cut, dead skin particles for “research”, old clothes, pens, etc. He even collects sketches he does of you when trying to “study” you as he likes to rationalize it.

To be honest, he’s a little freak. He is married to his craft so he has NOT felt the touch of another in a long, long time. Not to mention in Journal 3 he still often thinks about his 5th grade crush so little boy is untouched AND he pines long and hard.

He probably goes down to his lab and whenever he can’t think he smells your clothes. Not just the ones that smell like your perfume or cologne either. He collects old, sweaty artifacts too and just…smells it. Gross.

[the-east-art]

hello!! I hope you don’t mind me asking this, but do you have any good gf fic recs? I really like your sister’s one so maybe ones with similar vibes to that? :D

heck yeah! *to the tune of Stunkle Bunkle* East gives Gravity Falls Fic Recs!

idk if i can say for sure what does or doesn't have similar vibes to Pines Paradox, but I can tell you fics I like! Although legally if you like a fic I recommended you have to tell me 'I read that one and liked it' so I can feel like I'm getting a good grade in fics recs. One last thing: I'm not really a shipper so these should all if not mostly be gen. (if you want to see my entire list of bookmarks fics you can check out my ao3

Pines Paradox - BrownieFox

Ford's research is interrupted by his estranged brother showing up on his doorstep with a kid who claims to be time traveller. Meanwhile in the present, Stan and Mabel try to figure out how to get Dipper back to the right time. There will be secrets revealed, old wounds readdressed, and above it all a one-eyed demon watches with interest.

East: the primer. the blueprint. The one I do all the fanart for. Obv you have already read it, but in case this list gets around to other circles outside of my own, I want to put this one up first. Dipper gets stuck in the past BEFORE Not What He Seems.

Adrift - Jamesneatojourney

Stanford wakes up on the deck of the Stan O'War, concussed and alone

East: intense and dramatic - I'm kind of a sucker for Stan whump and that's what it is paired with REALLY good Ford POV

Pines! Pines! Pines! - hellmandraws

A collection of my various Gravity Falls fan comics, previously posted on Tumblr. The main focus tends to be on the Stan twins.

East: MUST READ COMICS. Hops all over the timeline, mostly focusing on Stan and Ford. Explores a bunch of aspects of their relationship, of the years they spend alone. It's the beast stuff out there.

putting the dog to sleep - parsnipit

ford can’t stop thinking about old yeller that night, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on their ceiling. he couldn’t do it, he thinks. he couldn’t ever shoot his own dog, no matter what. “well,” stanley says pragmatically the next morning, pretending like he doesn’t care as much as ford knows he does, “since he was sufferin’ and all, it was really better for him to be dead, wasn’t it? not much point in being alive if your whole life is terrible and you’re a danger to everybody you ever loved.” something cold and sharp takes up residence in ford’s stomach. he doesn’t like hearing stanley say stuff like that. he doesn’t like it at all. “i wouldn’t do it,” ford insists. “no matter what, i wouldn’t. there’s always another way.” “heh. yeah, i bet you’d find another way, brainiac,” stanley teases, reaching over to muss ford’s hair. ford swats him away. stanley can make fun all he wants—ford still spends all night thinking about cures for rabies.

East: OUTRHGDSGD the old yeller analogy that runs through this one shot absolutely kills me - I'm such a sucker for these types of metaphors. It uses quotes from the book to set the stage the the different sections and it drives me crazy in the best ways.

Things You Can't Take Back - thesnadger

It's Nineteen Seventy-Something. Stan is running from his mistakes, when he suddenly encounters the last person he ever thought he'd run into out here. What is he doing in Columbia, so far from Glass Shard Beach?

East: dare I spoil the twist? I won't. Read it. One of my all time faves.

Persist and Dwell - fencesit

Wendy pauses with her hand on the door and then says, "Hey, Soos—you ever notice Stan doesn't really...touch things?" He probably should have seen this coming, but the problem with deliberately not looking at things is that they have lots of chances to blindside you. In hopes of avoiding this conversation, Soos says, "I haven't noticed that." "Okay," Wendy says. "So. I'm going crazy, right?" "Dude, you're too smart to be crazy," Soos says, "but he totally touches things. He handed you money like five minutes ago."

East: What if Stan was lowkey-highkey haunting the shack?! THIS IS SUCH A GREAT IDEA. I really wish that there was more for this au or this idea

Deja Vu - interlude

Stan and Ford get stuck in a time loop on the day of the portal incident and are forced to work through some things.

East: Through the lense of a timeloop, watch the brothers have their struggles, and find that with infinite time on their hands there is nothing else for them to do but to eventually work things out (and maybe deal with how to get out of the loop). ITS GOOD SHIT

The Sacrifice of Stanford Pines - Jugare

Instead of sending Stan a postcard, Ford leaves Gravity Falls to find his brother. But to his shock, Stan is not nearly as willing to help as Ford thought. Everything goes south quickly.

East: I love this fic. The act of Ford going and finding Stan rather than having him send a letter gives these characters more time to interact before they arrive at the Shack, changing the course of fate. A top tier fic.

Under The Ice - castielrisingabove

What if that phone call the Bill-possessed Ford made to Stan actually went through?

East: short but to the point. A fun thought experiment and I think does a good job portraying both Stanley and Ford.

Sleight of Hand - impish_nature

Stan the magician!

East: Stan, post weirdmageddon, shows off his sleight of hand and his magic tricks. Ford POV. If you like the idea of the things lost in the cracks of memory after the series finale, or at least while Stan recuperates, you'll like this.

Unexpected but not Unwanted - impish_nature

Ford struggles as Stan remembers.

East: the tentative movements towards being a family, being brothers again, post weirdmageddon. shamelessly soft.

I Am A Selkie On The Sea - scribefindegil

The twins may be able to use the same sealskin, but only the one born with it is the true selkie. At least, that's what Ford's been telling himself for the past 40-odd years.

East: This series in general is really good. I like how the selkie skin is used to unit and to tear apart. My one gripe is I wish we never found out whether the skin belonged to Mabel or Dipper, and it was left for the reader to decide (and to decide if that even matters)

Too Late, Too Soon, Not Enough - IncomingAlbatross

(Another take on the missing scene in the Fearamid, featuring protectiveness, promises, and some long-overdue emotional progress. Also Stan being annoying on purpose.)

East: one of my favorite depictions of this scene. Does a good job with Fords POV and writing Stanley

why can't we just teach kids swears? - untrustworthyglitch

“Anyway, what’s in my kitchen that needs kid proofed? I keep the liquor in the high cabinets, where the kids won’t be able to reach,” Stan says. “Plus, the gun in the breadbox isn’t even loaded. Probably. I think.” Soos sighs. “I have my work cut out for me.” Or, in which Stan's niece and nephew are coming, and it's up to Wendy and Soos to fix Stan's life and habits.

East: A good fic, but more than that I really love this idea of how Soos and Wendy helped Stan get the shack ready for the kids.

Protective Instincts - ShyEye

Stanford decides to do some out of house research one late full moon night. He returns home only to almost instantly be attacked by an unfamiliar monster that maybe isn't as unfamiliar as initially thought.

East: I just love werewolf Stan au okay?

The Other Portal - Haberdasher

AU where, when items are lost in the Bottomless Pit, they come to Ford… regardless of his current location in the multiverse.

East: A good fic, but more than that it's a really fun idea! I wish they had pushed the implications of this even more (especially with the bottomless pit episode)

Off-Season - anistarrose

Winters running the Mystery Shack are difficult, but two unexpected guests improve Stan’s day.

East: cute oneshot. I'm a big fan of timetravel oneshots that are from the pov of the person who ISNT the timetraveler. Dramatic (or in this case tbh just very cute) irony.

In the Shadow of Death - A_Zap

It all started with the grim. Now it seems like every time he turns around, Ford finds yet another death omen hanging around his brother. Seriously, what exactly is going on with his brother that death constantly seems to follow his footsteps? A 5+1 fic of the death omens that adopted Stan and he adopted back.

East: It all comes together in the final chapter, trust me.

Changing Tides - Ariasune

When their dæmons settle, they'll be grown up. At least, that's the general idea.

and

Post-script - Ariasune

Poindexter, your deed is in the safe -- Wendy can open it for you -- don't worry about the mortgage, that's been paid off. Sorry about messing your life up again. Bye. PS - the milk is about to go bad, so you should use that up.

East: DAEMON AU DAEMON AU I'm such a sucker for these kinds of aus. Changing Tides focuses on canon, flipping between when the Stans were kids and the time of the show. Post Script naturally happens after the show. They're both good and dramatic.

Raising Stakes - Mary P Sue

East: heck, my copy and paste stopped working for some reason, so no summary for you. This is a vampire au and it's good! Create characterization, pretty clearly written either while Mystery Trio was a big thing or inspired by it. Carla fans get your juice.

[provide-milk]

Do You Know What You're Doing To Me?

Pt 1

Summary: You're down bad for Ford Pines and believe that he will never reciprocate your crush. Little do you know what's truly on his mind. That's how you find yourself in expensive lingerie, waiting for the time to go by.

Notes: Inspired by @chillinglyadventurous! Go check out their work! Specifically inspired by "Sneaking Around."

WARNING! ⚠️MINORS DO NOT INTERACT! 18+⚠️

You paced the floor of your kitchen anxiously while wearing a short slip dress with expensive lingerie underneath that you had bought just for the occasion. You kept turning on your phone to check the time. 

“Come on…” 

It was the first time you and Ford were going to be alone together for such a long period of time. Your somewhat innocent flirting seemed to have snowballed into whatever this was. When you had first seen him walk out of that portal you were immediately smitten. He walked with an air of confidence (and somewhat arrogance), it enchanted you. But you thought he was too old for you. Why would he take a second look at a girl who was barely turning 29? You thought your crush was a lost cause for sure and tried to not put any hope on it.

You thought.

As you checked out the silver fox everytime he walked into the room, you decided why not try at least to gain his attention. 

“Ford!” You exclaimed as he walked into the gift shop.

He turned, raising an eyebrow at you. God he was so fine.

“Yes?”

“Can you help me organize these postcards?”

He looked at you a bit confused as to why you would need help at such a simple task, but nonetheless obliged, walking over to you. Your heart was already pounding out of your chest just at his look. 

“Please just bend me over right now.” you thought to yourself.

As he helped you organize the postcards you brushed up against his arm slightly with your torso. 

“I’m sorry.” you choked out,definitely not as smooth as the way you intended. You saw him tense up

“It’s no problem…” he responded rather quietly.

Dammit, that did not go as planned.

You sighed and reached for a card, not paying attention to the fact that Ford was reaching for the exact same one. You grabbed his hand absentmindedly. 

Oh shit.

You looked up at Ford to see him staring at your hand on top of his. You both froze and was that… redness across his cheeks? No, you had to be seeing things.

“I’m so sorry.” You managed to stutter out once again.

This time Ford did not respond and instead pulled his hand away quickly.

“I think you got all the help you need now.” 

You watched as he walked in the opposite direction, wanting to bang your head against the cash register. Meanwhile you were unaware of the fact that Stanely was watching this all go down. He went towards you and leaned against the cash register as you tried to collect yourself. 

“I didn’t expect you to like older men like that.” Stan joked with a cheeky grin.

“I do not!” You exclaimed.

“Oh don’t lie to me kid. I’ve seen that look in your eyes from tons of women back in my day. I know what it means.”

You took a deep breath. “Ok and so what. I might have a little crush on-”

“My twin brother who’s way too old for a young girl like you.” Stanley interrupted.

,It’s just an innocent crush. It’s no biggie.”

He looked at you distrustfully. “Well just know that nothing is gonna come from it. Don’t get your hopes up. Point-dexter over there only cares about his work and I like to think he has enough morals not to date a young girl like yourself.”

“Ok Stan…” You replied, disappointedly.

After that day, you swore the energy between Ford and you shifted. You didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing. Both of you would catch each other gazing at one another and would quickly turn your heads. Ford and you somehow kept ending up in close proximity, whether that was sitting next to each other in the back seat on trips to the store or “accidentally” bumping into one another or grazing each torsos barely. These slight touches drove you wild and at night you would repeat them over and over again in your head, hoping that somehow they had some type of meaning. He began to give you soft smiles as evidence that he noticed you in the room. 

One day as you were cleaning, preparing for the tourists coming in, Ford gave you that soft smile of recognition, you replied with a good morning.

In his gruff morning stricken voice, he replied, “Good morning dear.” Before walking away nonchalantly and that was enough to drive you crazy for the rest of the day. 

One day you decided to push your luck.

He leaned against the wall as he told you a story about when he encountered a multibear for the first time. It had 6 heads? No, that wasn’t right. Maybe 7? 5? You could hardly pay attention to his tale, as you were enraptured by the animated way he was talking to you with glee across his face. You’d never seen him like this before. It seemed that he was slowly getting more comfortable about you. You touched his shoulder gently, as you giggled as he impersonated the bear.   

“You’re so charming Ford.”

Oh shit. You said that out loud. 

You saw Stan from the other side of the room whip his head around to give you a frown. 

You looked up at Ford to see him rubbing the back of his neck with his hand with a look on his face that showed that he was deep in thought.

“I’ve never been called that before but… I suppose I can be.”

Well, you were already testing the waters. Might as well go in the deep end.

You leaned in a little closer, your hand leaving his shoulder to his bicep.

“Oh Ford, you’re more than charming to me.” You said softly, this time in a more flirtatious manner.

Ford froze completely and you could see the blood rushing towards his face.

“Ah… I-”

“Alright sweetheart, enough talking with sixer. Why don’t you-uhhh- wipe the cash register. Yeah! That’s a good idea!” Stan butted in, grabbing you away by the hand. Ford awkwardly walked away, a blush still evident on his face.

“What are you doing?” Stan exclaimed quietly towards you.

“What do you mean?” You asked innocently.

“You know what you’re doing.”

“Do not!”

“Do too!” Stan took a deep breath. “Look…I don’t mind you having a crush on point-dexter over there, but let's keep the flirting to a minimum.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh Ford, you’re more than charming to me!” Ford mocked in a high pitched voice.

“I was just complimenting him, jeez…”

“I don’t know what you’re plotting in that mind of yours, but whatever you’re thinking, stop it. You’re only gonna disappoint yourself. Go find some guy your own age instead of some narcissistic old geezer.”

“Ugh! Fine! I’ll leave him alone from now on…”

Stan gave you a pat on the back, “That’s my girl.”

But how were you supposed to stop when the tables began to turn.

You noticed for the past few days Ford was walking into the gift shop much more than usual after what you said. He would come over to tell you story after story of his adventures across dimensions. You began to look forward to them and they became a routine at a point. One day as he was talking, he stopped himself mid sentence.

“And that’s when I said…” He looked you up and down, his mind going off track. “Wow, you’re looking beautiful today.”

You somehow contained the squeal that you wanted to let loose in that moment.

“Well Ford, you’re always looking handsome.” You quipped back.

Instead of freezing like before, he gave you a wink. A wink!

You felt like your head was spinning after that interaction.

After that, flirtatious comments became part of the routine as well (hidden from Stan’s ears of course). As Ford was telling you yet another story, he leaned in closer to you.

“You know… I could show you some of what I’m writing if that’s ok with you?”

It felt like the wind was knocked out of your chest.

“I’d love that.”

And that’s how you found yourself in Ford’s underground laboratory. You stood near Ford as he sat down in his chair, flipping through the pages and explaining things to you. 

“And look at this-” He said pointing at a drawing before pausing to look up at you.

“What?”

“Oh it’s nothing…” He responded, quickly looking away. “It’s just that.. You’re really close to me right now.”

Fuck, now was your move for real this time.

“And why is that a problem?”

“Oh it’s not a problem…It’s just that-”

You lowered yourself to look him in the eyes, “Ford… Let’s stop ignoring the elephant in the room.”

“Elephant in the room? Ahh… You seem to be mistaken! I-”

“Ford. Please.” You pleaded with begging eyes. “I can’t keep living like this…” Your eyes went to his lips and it was not unnoticed by Ford. “I need you.”

Ford was completely stunned and at a loss for words. You leaned in closer to him, your faces just centimeters away from each other’s. Ford took a deep breath.

“You know I’m way too old for you dear.” He said barely above a whisper.

“I know.” Your eyes on his lips still. 

“And that I only care about my work.”

“I know”

“And that I have a lot of… issues..”

“I know”

“And that-”

You kissed him softly but quickly, barely giving him enough time to register what just happened. It was silent, the only sound being both of your breathing which was getting deeper and deeper. Ford became silent for what felt like forever, he seemed to be lost in his thoughts, thinking about his next move meticulously. 

“Oh the hell with it.”

You both were overcome with passion in that moment, immediately reaching out for one another. Your lips meshed against his and Ford’s hands went straight towards your hips, pulling you onto his lap roughly, making you straddle him. You both moaned softly into each other’s mouths. You could hardly keep up with Ford as he mercilessly kissed you. You were taken aback how firmly he was kissing you and how his hands began to slide up the inside of the hem of your shirt. You felt like the parts of your body under his fingertips were on fire. You loved it. You loved feeling him indulge in his desire that he had tried to hold back so desperately. 

He forced his tongue inside your mouth and you groaned as you began to suck on it.You could feel the heat pool between your legs and you began to grind yourself against Ford. It’s not like he was any better though. You felt his growing erection against the inside of your thighs. Your body tingled as his hands went higher and higher until his fingers were slowly creeping under the straps of your bra.

“Ford.” You gasped, finally pulling your lips away from his.

You looked down at Ford. His chest was heaving, skin flushed, and hair messed up. God, he looked sexy. He seemed to gain consciousness a few seconds later and quickly removed his hands from under your shirt.  

“Shit…” He whispered, almost to himself. “I didn’t-fuck-mean to go that far. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I-.”

“Can I suck you off?” You said between pants.

Ford looked entirely taken aback, blinking at you blankly.

“...What did you say?”

“Can I suck you off?” You replied, this time more confidently.

He combed his hand through his hair and you could tell he was tempted. Talk about kicking a man while he’s already down.

“Sweetheart… This was already more than enough. We really shouldn’t even be doing this in the first place.”

“But Ford…” You grinded against his erection. He groaned in response. “I can tell you want this. We both want this.”

Ford was mesmerized by your eyes which were darkened with lust. It was a sight he thought he would only be able to dream about.

“This is insane…” he muttered. “I think we should end here.” He started to stand up, picking you up before placing you down. 

You looked at him with pleading eyes, “Please Ford.”

He was ashamed by the way his dick twitched in response and took a defeated sigh, “You should be getting back to work now. I’ve kept you down here long enough…”

He sat back down, avoiding eye-contact with you, but his face was still a slight shade of pink. 

“Fine.” You muttered before leaving the lab, still in a daze from what just happened, almost bumping into the wall. 

When you were out of sight, Ford looked down at his unrelenting boner. He grunted as he hesitantly placed his six fingers against it and palmed himself. He felt like he was fighting demons as his hand reached towards his zipper bit by bit. He smacked his own hand, having both of them fall to his side. He leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling.

“Dear Lord, does she even know what she’s doing to me?”  

[poppurini]

他们是在 。。。暧昧 ！？second edition.

content. what made your friends think you’re dating him

incl. deuce, jade, jamil & gn!reader ┊ first edition

note. deepest apologies to jamil stans i really tried

deuce spade

Yeeah. It’s so obvious. The first-year can’t even look at you without growing red or sputter nonsense, it’s cute actually. They’d think it’s only a crush but when you laugh and place a reassuring hand on top of his whenever he’s nervous? Yeeah. Everyone could tell it’s the day after feelings were confessed and reciprocated!

That’s not the only factor, though. You see, Deuce and his friend group are particularly loud (cough Ace Grim Sebek). I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody overheard them screaming about Deuce finally making a move or succeeding in asking you out. Also the way they IMMEDIATELY move to sit across or pull another chair just to let you sit beside Deuce is a dead giveaway. Jack’s the only one trying not to make this a big deal.

jade leech

People actually thought you made some type of contract with Octavinelle’s mischievous dorm head and fucked up some things within it when they saw Jade Leech, the equally infamous Octavinelle student around you all the time. They thought he was collecting debt from you! You know, always around you, leaving a little snack on your desk with a note containing who knows what grave threats in it, greeting you outside when class ends, all those notorious pressuring tactics. But you look…happy? When you see him? And Jade looks? Genuine? When he smiles at you? Definitely an unfamiliar sight.

The dots finally connected when you were given a limited edition pastry on the house during that time you visited Mostro Lounge with your friends. Seriously? Free? Octavinelle doesn’t just give out free stuff without some promoting. No, that man handed it to you just like that, told you to enjoy your stay. He didn’t even thought of giving your friends one! Look look, there it is. That super mischievous and mocking smile. Directed towards them but not you, is he courting you?

jamil viper

Jamil sighs when he realises he forgot his headphones back at your place. You needed help in one of the chapters and Kalim encouraged him greatly to aid you, giving him permission to leave his side. The study session went on late, both overworked students tired, and he bid goodbye forgetting his headphones. Now he actually has to listen to Floyd’s annoyingly high pitched voice and some of Ace’s not so intelligent comments during warmup. Until a voice that rings pleasantly in his ears was heard. “Jamil! You left this at my place- hm? Oh no worries! Thanks again with helping me with homework yesterday. I’ll see you later? Bye!” before you hurriedly rushed to your own club activity.

After giving you a wave, Jamil did a sharp turn, purposely avoiding the other basketball club members’ gaze. Left it? At your place? Riiight. Jamil’s not a bad person, but his hands are so full with making sure Kalim survives that no one thinks it’s possible for him to fish out time for another or even willing to. Definitely prompted some teasing brow wiggles and elbow nudges.

[wayward-dreamer]

Pillow Talk

Pairing: Soldier Boy x F!Reader

Word count: 1,782

Summary: After a stressful meeting lead by Stan Edgar, Y/N looks forward to her other weekly meeting that is far more enjoyable.

Warnings: Swearing, implied smut: oral sex (f receiving), unprotected sex (wrap it up people), pillow talk turned dirty talk, vaginal fingering

A/N: I started writing this after that Gen V ep, but a lot of things got in the way of me finishing it. Happy reading, hope y'all like it! :) beta'd by my love @hintsofhoney

Y/N yawned, covering her mouth with her hand as she scribbled random drawings on the paper in front of her with a black pen. She was bored out of her mind as Mr. Edgar addressed everyone in the meeting, something about the latest demographic numbers for the supes and she was meant to be taking notes about it all, but she lost track. Whoever decided it was a good idea to have a meeting at the end of the day on a Friday was an idiot. Another few minutes of this and she could leave, once the clock ticked over to 5pm and the weekend was officially upon them. She kept glancing up at the time, her heeled foot shaking in anticipation for a regular meeting of her own that she was excited to get to.

Ever since Vought’s Christmas party a few months ago, when she caught the attention of Soldier Boy and they spent the night together, she’d leave the Friday meeting, pack up her things and get her night started with him. It was never anything serious between them, just some fun between them every week, and that was exactly what she needed.

A smile came to her face as she got lost in thought about everything he had in store for her, just as Mr. Edgar dismissed everyone for the weekend. She picked up her things and walked out behind all the male employees who she couldn’t stand. She was Mr. Edgar’s assistant but there were times that she was forced to do tasks some of the other suits wanted her to do, no matter how much she protested. They were all arrogant, entitled assholes who only wanted one thing when they looked at her, and even though Soldier Boy was no different because he also was a man of his time, at least he never pretended to be anything else around her.

Y/N walked back to her desk and put everything on top, ready to collect once she decided to leave, before she made her way down the hallway towards the loft apartments where the supes resided. She stopped in front of the door marked with “Soldier Boy” in gold letters, turning the knob and letting herself in, which was what she always did considering the door was unlocked after 5pm just for her. As she strolled into the apartment, she unbuttoned and took off her gray blazer, draping it over the back of one of the armchairs, smiling at the sound of a Sinatra song coming from the record player in the corner.

“Right on time,” she heard his deep, rough voice enter the room as he walked from his bedroom to the bar.

She turned around, a shiver running down her back as she took in his appearance. “I’m nothing if not punctual.”

Soldier Boy smirked as he poured a generous amount of whiskey into two tumblers, moving out from behind the bar as he sauntered over to her, his suit unzipped and revealing the white t-shirt he was wearing underneath. He swiped something off the surface before he stood in front of her, handing her a glass.

“After the day I’ve had, I really need this,” she said, turning the tumbler around in her hand. “Cheers.”

He clinked his glass against hers, a grin on his face as he watched her take a few sips. He held up the small, plastic bag with a handful of pills inside, waving it in front of her eyes which had her pause drinking, their gazes locked on each other.

“Anything else you really need?”

“Yes,” she breathed, her mouth opening slightly.

They kept their eyes on each other as he took out two of the small, round tablets from the bag. She stuck her tongue out a little, making him groan at the sight as he placed one of the pills on it, watching her swallow it down and taking a sip of her whiskey. He continued to stare at her as he tossed the tablet back with a swig of his drink, frowning as he saw her put her now empty glass down as she began to unbutton her blouse.

“You know that’s my job, doll,” he husked, his eyes darkened as he looked at her. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

He wasted no more time as he threw back the rest of the amber liquid, tossing the glass behind him and hearing it shatter, unbothered by the scattered pieces across the floor. He moved towards her, pulling her roughly into his arms as he pressed his lips to hers, the kiss as searing and erotic as all their previous encounters. He grasped her shirt in his hands, ripping it down the front, a squeal escaping her as the buttons flew everywhere. By now he usually had her on the bed, on her back with her legs thrown over his shoulders, but he had other plans for her as he pushed her down on the sofa. The fingers of one hand curled into the leather as the other moved between the soft locks of his hair, his head between her thighs and making her come undone in no time at all as she screamed his name and covered his mouth in her arousal.

Before she could fully comprehend what was happening, Soldier Boy gathered her in his strong arms and carried her over to the dining table, roughly dropping her down on the surface as their hands frantically pulled off the rest of each other’s clothes. With her back meeting the cold wood of the table and her legs wrapped around his waist, she moaned wantonly as he thrusted into her, moving faster and harder with every mutter of his name from her lips. It wasn’t long before she reached the peak for a second time, a giggle of disbelief leaving her as she came down from her high.

They made it to the bed eventually. With one last release from her triggering his, they came together as he grunted, a smirk pulling at his lips when he felt the way he spilled inside her walls. He rolled off her, her nimble fingers plucking the sheet up and pulling it over them, just as he reached for the cigarettes on his nightstand. He took one out of the pack and placed it between his lips, picking up his lighter and flicking it, bringing the small flame to the tip. He took a long drag before he blew it out, closing his eyes in satisfaction as he felt Y/N take the cigarette from between his fingers. As he opened them, he turned to look at her, watching the way she held it between her own fingers, the way her lips closed around the filter.

“Well, you really know how to take my mind off things, that’s for damn sure,” she stated, laughing softly as she placed the cigarette in the ashtray that sat on the nightstand.

“It’s a fucking gift,” he grinned. “Better take a breather, ‘cause I ain't done with you yet, sugar.”

She smiled, a small sigh escaping her as she thought back on the day. “It’s a good thing we keep this little rendezvous of ours on a Friday because those meetings are slow, agonizing torture.”

“I’m guessing it was a meeting with Stan?” he asked, leaning in and pressing a kiss to her neck.

“Yeah,” she replied, a small gasp falling from her lips as he continued to nip at her skin. “He just stresses me out about everything.”

She tried to resist him as he nuzzled at her neck, trying to move further down, but she eventually gave in with a low moan. Her eyes closed as her head fell back against the pillow, feeling his lips move down her collarbone and pull the sheet down, exposing her breasts to him. Her eyebrows furrowed as he nipped and sucked at her flesh, his tongue circling over her nipple.

“Handling the supes is getting to be too much as well, thanks to him,” she muttered, biting down on her lip as she tried to move away from him.

She could feel herself getting lost to his skillful tongue and fingers, but the second round he was trying to start needed to wait. She was only human, and didn’t have the same stamina he had as a supe.

He lifted his head, releasing the stiff bud with a wet pop, staring down at her. “Even me?”

“Especially you,” she countered, a mischievous smile pulling at her lips.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he began, his signature smirk on his face as his hand drifted down under the sheets, moving between her legs and feeling how wet she was again. Their eyes locked as he teased her folds with his fingers, causing her to gasp and a deep, rough chuckle to escape him as he didn’t take his gaze off her. “I think you’re pretty fucking capable of handling all of me.”

“Stop,” she giggled, trying and failing to push him away.

“You’re the one who can’t stay away, doll.”

“Maybe I should,” she challenged, lifting an eyebrow as she looked up at him.

Soldier Boy’s green eyes darkened with lust, and something else she had no desire to identify. A short gasp of pleasure escaped her as his thumb brushed over her clit, his intense stare never leaving her as the digit circled around the bundle of nerves. Her eyes fluttered closed as a long, drawn out moan left her mouth, his fingers sinking into her tight heat.

“See… if you did that, then you wouldn’t be right here, with my fingers fucking into your tight little pussy,” he grunted, his jaw tight as he looked down at her through hooded eyes.

Y/N didn’t recognize the sound she made as he started to thrust his fingers into her, maybe it was a moan, but it was a shrill cry, she wasn’t sure. All she knew was that she was giving into him once more. As she always did whenever she found herself back here, every single Friday.

“You always come back to a little… pillow talk, don’t ya, sugar?”

The words were just above a whisper, the rough timbre of his voice causing a shiver to run down her back as she wrapped her arm around his neck, holding onto him as she nodded, letting him pleasure her in every way he wanted. He knew she had only been teasing him when she said she’d stay away from him. They both knew her resolve wasn’t that strong.

She wasn’t going to give up this little ritual of theirs any time soon.

[seungisms]

🖇️📁 𝐒𝐊𝐙 … 𝐀𝐒 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐊 𝐁𝐎𝐘𝐒

𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: a disturbing amount of fluff, read at your own risk

𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: kinda based of that one txt song where they're the most pathetic simps ever but make it skz (also lovesick girls by bp but not really, just pinching the title. sorry girls <3) went a little off with minho and hyunjin cause i’m so obsessed with the thought them liking someone to the point it makes them nauseous. reblog for a kiss, feedback much appreciated!

𝐁𝐀𝐍𝐆 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐍

#1 [name] stan right here ladies and gents and my non-binary friends 

istg the first time he was introduced to you there was full ass hearts in his eyes

obviously he thought you were so pretty and cute

but as soon as you started rambling about your love of songwriting and hoping to one day become a producer he was officially whipped

felix had to physically hold him back from embarrassing himself

and had to do so multiple times after

he becomes such a big goof around you

like he’ll be so calm and collected when you’re not around but as soon as someone so much as mentions your name he’s suddenly tripping over his feet and sweating at the brow

sometimes it scares him how in love he is with you

literally malfunctions if you even brush against his hand

man would drop everything if you needed him

not cause he’s whipped

he just wants to be a good friend duh

(okay maybe he’s a tad whipped)

makes so many excuses to be around you alone

and once snuck into jeongin’s phone to steal your number

has you stored on his phone as ‘[y/n]🥺🤍]’ for weeks before actually gaining the courage to text you

and like you were practically waiting for him to make a move cause he’s so goddamn obvious 

if any of the multiple hoodies and sweatshirts you own of his that he insists you take to remember him by were a hint 

and you’re like,,, bro,,, u live across the street

and he’s like yeah,,, but,,, shut up

really he just wants to see you wearing his clothes

gives him that boyfriend/girlfriend fantasy

he’ll never actually make a move cause he’s so damn insecure of himself and thinks you deserve someone much better that’ll be around more than him and omg he’s so dumb just kiss him

it’ll make him so happy

until then he’s just happy admiring you from a distance

but you can bet your ass once you guys actually start dating he’ll be 10000% more smitten than he was before

𝐋𝐄𝐄 𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐇𝐎

freaked out by his feelings and shows his love for you in the form of relentlessly teasing you to the point where you think he hates you

but really all he wants more in life is to kiss that dumb smile off your face

doesn’t realise how intimidating he comes off to other people

swears he’s staring at you all dreamy and in love but literally all you can see is (ಠ_ಠ) looking at you from across the room

will rant to his cats about you

hand to *god* if they could they’d be rolling their eyes at him

will blush like a mfing teenage girl once you start easing up around him, playing into his teasing and realising he’s just a big cat loving softie behind all those bitchy side eyes

has threatened to beat ur ass on more than one occasion if you ever tell anyone though

the others catch onto his little soft spot for you as soon as they catch him letting you get away with things he’d bitch at them for

like this one time everyone was going on a small road trip

minho was driving and before you could even open your mouth jisung was already pushing past you yelling ’sHoTgUn’

only to get yanked back by the collar of his shirt before he could even reach for the car handle

and minho is just staring down at him like

🧍‍♂️ that’s [name]’s seat

lets you use the aux cord too

buys you this cute little kitty mug for your birthday

leaves out the fact that it was part of a couple set and he has a matching one back at the dorm

but one day you catch him drinking out of it while visiting the boys and you just send him the cutest little knowing grin ever and this mf is choking on his coffee

clutching his heart, falling off his seat, slamming his head against the table from that one smile

you’re the first person he goes to when he has a bad day

just feels like he can actually open up to you 

and you’re just so comforting to him, it makes him love you even more

and everyone thinks you’re such a dumbass cause how have you not caught on yet??? this man literally stares at you as if you hung the stars in the sky???

he'll pine after you for a long ass time before he actually confesses to you cause he doesn’t like to be vulnerable in front of others and he sucks ass at voicing his feelings

teasing gets 10000x worse when you start dating

(if you don’t get along with his cats though it’s a deal-breaker, no matter how cute ur dumbass is)

𝐒𝐄𝐎 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐁𝐈𝐍

heart eyes

literally as soon as felix introduced you to him he’s fucking twirling his hair, kicking his feet and shit

doesn’t know how to talk to pretty girls so after you’re done introducing yourself to the other boys and turn to him he’s just like

hi

you know that one time chan and sana from twice did a live together and changbin was just in the corner like 🧍‍♂️

that’s him all the time around you

he’s not above making a fool out of himself

does things he would never normally do

lets you paint his nails

but insists it has to be black

cause he’s a man™️

doesn’t stfu about you

like he could be talking to someone about smth completely unrelated and he’ll just randomly go

‘omg did u see what [name] was wearing today?? she’s so pretty??? she could literally pull off anything?? did you know she has a pet guinea pig?'

and the other person is just like okay changbin go home

like don’t get me wrong the other guys love you like their sister but not when they have to pull this guy away from some random trainee that he decided would be the perfect victim to dump all his [name] rants on

pays sm attention to you

will make you feel like the only girl in the world istg

like you could just be casually talking about ur day and he’ll be soso silent, staring at you with literal fucking stars in his eyes like :) go on :)

just loves to hear you talk

thinks the little twinkle in your eyes and the grin tugging at your lips when you’re ranting about smth you’re passionate about is the prettiest sight ever

will go into full on hysterics if you ever make the slightest change in your appearance

dyed your hair? heart palpitations. decided to wear glitter on ur lids? sweating at the brow. wearing that cute little skirt you recently bought? yeah he’s dying right there on the spot.

probably has a private twitter account where all he does is cry about you

pines for so long before making a move

and he’s just so nervous and can’t keep his cool at all

literally wants to punch himself in the future once you start dating and tell him you wanted him to make a move every time you saw him 😭

he’s a dumbass but at least he’s a cute one

𝐇𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐆 𝐇𝐘𝐔𝐍𝐉𝐈𝐍

he’s such a flirt

and you don’t catch the hint he’s basically smitten with you cause the way he flirts with you is the same way he flirts with felix 😭

normally very confident when approaching people he’s interested in but smth about you just makes him go into windows.exe shutdown mode everytime he’s able to hype himself up to finally tell you he likes you

approaches with such a pretty grin, hearing his heart in his ears and a little voice in the back of his head that sounded far too similar to jisung saying ‘u got this’

but the moment you look up at him and shoot him that damn smile of yours he’s just like

:o

you swear to this day you could see a little buffering symbol above his head

and he really can’t think of anything to say for the first time in his life and omg you’re looking at him and doing that cute little confused head tilt you always do and he can’t open his mouth and okay now he’s walking away 

you’re just like 😃👍 ok

forbids you from mentioning it to this day

will have n o problem sitting in the corner all sulky if he feels you’re paying too much attention to the other boys

and will get petty about it

like

‘oh why are you over here talking to me now? thought u were having fun with your bOyFrIeNdS’

and ur like oh okay i’ll just go take my attention somewhere else and now he’s running after u like nO WAIT

lets you braid his hair :((

finds your presence so comforting no matter how much he loves to tease you

sometimes he’ll just facetime you after he’s had a rough day and you’ll just both sit in silence while sketching together

loves your little doodles no matter how shit you think they are

hides the fact that most of his recent artworks are of you <333

whenever you go on day trips with him he'll always have his camera

and like a 9/10 chance most of the photos he takes that day are of you

but if you catch him he’ll become all tsundere and be like ‘yOUR UGLY ASS WAS BLOCKING THE VIEW’

and you’re just like okay then explain the blush on your face

has matching rings with you

actually gifted you the ring and just decided not to mention he also has the same one

bro grifted you

you’re dating before you even know you’re dating okay? okay.

𝐇𝐀𝐍 𝐉𝐈𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐆

another that makes a fool out of himself for your attention and has no problem doing so

has matching friendship bracelets with you and literally wears it everywhere

even on stage

doesn’t care about the fact that it’s bright pink with little flowers and butterflies attached to it

he cherishes that thing with his mfing life

so obnoxious but in a cute anime girl way of course

if you’re on the other side of the room his first instinct is to make a scene and be the loudest bitch in there to get ur attention

will send you good morning texts everyday without fail

but this guy wakes up at like 2pm on a good day but it’s the thought that counts !! 

so whipped and its soso obvious that the others just wanna grab your head and shake it until you finally realise half the love songs on their albums are written about you

one day when you complimented his shirt he made sure to wear it every time he saw you for the next 2 weeks straight

until the point chan literally had to rip it off him

he’s a such a fool

loves when you randomly show up to the studio during the middle of the night cause you ‘had a gut feeling he was overworking himself’ and he swears he falls even more in love with you in that moment than he already was 

and you just look so cute and sweet bundled up in his sweatshirt, hands carrying all his favourite foods and the sleepiest look in your eyes

lets you cuddle against him while he works away on his tracks 

and has to clam himself down from squealing like a teenage girl once your head starts to slump against his shoulder and cute little snores leave you

has the most precious smile on his face

swears he sees a flash coming from the door out of the corner of his eye

and as he’s turning around chan and changbin are hightailing it out of there

becomes his favourite photo

and the rest are just like??? how tf do either of you not realise how smitten both of u are?? 

spoiler alert: its cause ur both dumb af

will literally do anything you ask

will drop everything to come over to ur place at like 1am just to eat cheap ramen and watch some shitty rom-com he’s already seen with you 100 times before

complains he hates them the whole way through

(lets ignore the fact that he actually loves them and can recite legally blonde word for word)

you guys both have a nightly ritual of doing face masks and skincare together when he stays

says he hates it but his skin has never felt so soft???

takes him awhile to actually realise you like him too 

and everyone is just like bRO HOW SHE’S LITERALLY WRAPPED AROUND YOUR FINGER!! THIS GIRL LITERALLY WORSHIPS YOU?

but jisung :) an oblivious cutie :)

got the whole jype building frustrated af

the whole of twice and itzy 100% ship you two together on a daily basis

anyway [name] and jisung cutest couple 2023 guys get into it

𝐋𝐄𝐄 𝐅𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐗

incredibly sweet but you just think he’s being nice so it’s very frustrating to everyone around you

loves skinship

in general a very big fan

but even more when it’s with you (or hyunjin)

lays his head on ur shoulder while watching some low budget movie, gives you the tightest hugs when you meet up and can’t help but brush his hand up against your own for some type of contact

no matter what it is he always has to be touching you

makes plans with you and is like ‘oh yeah, the guys are gonna meet us there!!’

and when you finally get there its just him sitting waiting for you like :)

literally goes ‘oh no !! they cancelled last minute, guess ur stuck with me <333’

and he’s so cute that you can’t even be mad when he decides to be a devious little shit

probably forces you to learn new girl group choreography with him for tiktok

and if you accidentally run into one of the twice members while visiting him during practice this guy will literally lean down and whisper 'don't embarrass me' before ditching ur ass to do the pop choreo with nayeon or some shit

buys you stuff all the time

as if you’re actually dating

once he bought you this little bracelet (for no reason other than ur cute, the bracelet is cute, be cute together) 

gives it to you with the prettiest smile and is just like ‘thought of u !!’ and ur just looking at the price tag like felix this is $500…

this mf insists on holding ur hand in public and people always mistake you for a couple

and when they comment on how cute you guys are and you go to correct them but then felix is butting in like ‘thank u!! :D’

literally gets withdrawal symptoms when he goes home to australia to visit his family

will have no problem calling you at 3am just to hear your voice

his phone lockscreen is 100% a selfie of the both of you

also almost definitely has an album on his phone dedicated to you

filled with cute photos he took of you when you weren’t looking

and will scroll through them at midnight with the most lovesick grin on his face

basically becomes his nightly routine

when one of the other boys are like ‘hey, consider this. maybe felix does all this stuff cause he likes u? idk, just a theory.’

and ur just like hahaha nooo he’s just being nice :D

cue ot7 wanting to rip their hair out over you two stupid asses 

𝐊𝐈𝐌 𝐒𝐄𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐌𝐈𝐍

he thinks he’s flirting but really he’s just being an asshole

lucky for him you think he’s a cute asshole

when you first become friends with the rest of the boys you legit thought he couldn’t stand you cause he was sulking in the corner not talking to you once

but really he was just grumpy that the others were taking up all the time of the pretty girl he wanted to ask out

also struggles to look you in the eyes the first couple weeks

cause wow ur so cute

eases up around you when he realises you’re just as dumb as the rest of them

becomes ur best friend in the span of a week istg

sends you this and is like ‘omg, [name]!! someone recorded u in the shower and sent it to me!!’

and you have to resist the urge to drive to the dorms just to beat his ass into next week

extremely protective of you though

if anyone ever tries to mess with you he’s straight over like ‘hey >:( only i can make fun of her >:((‘

100% that childish schoolyard crush where the boy pulls on the hair of the girl he likes

whenever the guys ask him if he wants to hang out he’s like,,, with u losers??? fk no

and chan just goes oh okay well [name] is gonna be pretty disappointed 

and this guy is suddenly all up in his face like …..😳 [name] will be there??….😳

and chan has to restrain himself from grabbing his phone and snapping a picture cause kim seungmin just fucking blushed

likes his own space but he never minds when you decide to come over and keep him company

joins you when you decide to bake at midnight

not to help

he just likes making a mess and pissing you off

randomly decided he likes seeing you in his clothes so please expect his hoodies and sweatshirts to ‘mysteriously’ appear in your room

(really just wants to see how cute you look wearing them)

literally feels his heart get soso warm when you wear his sweatshirt to the dorms one day

and will be like ‘see, [name] loves me. we’re practically dating’ to the other boys

and minho is rolling his eyes and saying ‘as if u pussy’ and now seungmin is ranting with tears in his eyes about how it’s H I S sweatshirt you’re wearing not minhos

petty af

whenever he’s being grumpy he’ll snap at you to go bother someone else

and immediately regrets it when you sulk out of the room

but he's also a dick and just sits and feels sorry for himself for a few hours

later when he goes to find you to apologise and sees you playing video game and goofing around with jeongin

him af

will make it up to you always 

he’s just so in love with you and doesn’t know how to handle it :(

𝐘𝐀𝐍𝐆 𝐉𝐄𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐈𝐍

first of all can someone save this boy cause he sure as hell can’t save himself

freezes up anytime you come into the room and won’t say a damn word to you

is perfectly content staring at you from across the room for the rest of his life if that means not embarrassing himself

cause he 100% would if he even attempted to talk to ur cute ass

the only reason you two even became friends was because hyunjin got sick of your pining and locked you in a room together

and you’re just watching like :( as jeongin is banging and yelling at the door to let you out

and you think he’s not interested in being friends with you but really he’s practically seconds away from having a full mental breakdown at the mere thought of being locked in a room with a pretty girl with even prettier eyes

notices your sad stare avoiding him and suddenly he wants to beat himself up for making you feel like that

semi-explains himself

he’s just an awkward little bitch really

leaves out the fact that he’s pretty sure he’s in love with you and doesn’t know how to act like a normal human being around you

cue to the both of you finally being let out like three hours later cause the guys got suspicious from the lack of noise

and there you two were knocked out on the bed cuddling like two cuties :(

istg it was chans lockscreen for a solid year 

after that he’s even more smitten with you

if he’s ever on his phone the boys just assume he’s either stalking your insta or texting you random memes and thinking it’s flirting

but really he’s texting you the same way he’s texts seungmin so???

will show up at your apartment at like 2am and just be like ‘c’mon lets get food’

and now you’re sitting in some shitty ramen place and it’s cold and the lights above you keep flickering

but jeongin is sitting across from you looking so cute while trying to slurp up noodles that never seem to stop and you couldn’t be happier

uses his cutie maknae card to get out of practice earlier

just to visit you while you try to study/work

aka him annoying you until you cave and pay attention to him

will play video games with you

and claims he ‘let you win’ when you beat his ass

always makes the cute scrunchy face when you hug him and be even the slightest bit affectionate with him

and swears he hates it

but really he has to stop himself from locking himself in his room and squealing into his pillow like a 14 year old girl whos crush just looked at her for the first time

i repeat

someone save this boy

in love with you for a good two years before he even thinks about making a move

he’s just shy when it comes to his feelings but trust me when you guys start dating he’ll be the most annoying little fucker ever <333

© 𝐬𝐞𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐬𝐦𝐬 — 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐫����𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐝. 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠/𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝.

[beneathashadytree]

what are your favourite unhinged headcannons for the lads/lnds LIs please?🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽 like something that based on how they act in canon preferably but even if it's way left field, just something funny about them

I personally headcanon Zayne as autistic (my radar is going OFF) so I’m 100% projecting when I say that he’s definitely offended MANY superiors at university with his manner of speaking. This makes him feel absolutely HUMILIATED when he gets told off/reminded that not every takes his straightforwardness as a good thing. It’s why sometimes he often hesitates & rethinks his words with the MC; the Neurodivergent Struggle™️

Ever since he and MC started dating, he’s definitely caught himself looking in the mirror more than he ever did before. Not out of vanity, but merely checking in on his appearance every now and then. He’s more conscious of how he looks (in a good way!!) compared to how he previously viewed his body as simply a vessel before. Goes completely red when caught by them, and plays it off as checking for new scars (hint: there aren’t any this time).

Rafayel has a habit of making biting remarks as he gets all shy and defensive, but sometimes he doesn’t hear the double entendres behind his words until the MC smirks at him. Sometimes it’s purely coincidental and he goes beet red, other times he’s lowkey handing them bait to tease him. Maybe a small part of him likes it when he hears them say such scandalous things and joke around…

Delicate as his hands are, he’s got a pretty extensive knife collection. Super fancy too, like the stuff you’ll find at those oddly specific stores downtown where the single set of 6 pieces costs your left kidney and a leg. When he’s run out of inspiration, he sharpens them and takes VERY good care of them. This type of attention is also given to his beloved daggers and weapons of choice. Shiny = pretty is a very recurrent theme with him.

Xavier had gone through a phase where he was trying his best to adjust to life amongst humans, and that was when he was introduced to the wonders of pop culture and the entertainment world. So if he happens to hum along to insanely obscure songs that were popular a decades ago and somehow has every song by said artist memorized, don’t question it. He’s a multi-stan.

Being such a sleepy guy who’s barely conscious, Xavier has definitely skipped MANY relationship milestones with the MC by accidentally letting important words slip during phone calls. Whenever they call him and he’s just woken up, he just word-vomits/half-mumbles his way through his sappiest thoughts that come to him so easily (examples: “I love you so much” “Can’t wait till you marry me” and “Let’s buy a big house for our future family”)

This actually turned out to be more detailed than I thought it would be, sorry for rambling nonnie. This is practically a piece of writing on its own 😭😭

[faetima]

𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐫 . .

. . maybe you and alhaitham were just never meant to be.

// tws ; blood ! possible alluding to reader’s death? ; gn reader ; modern & high school au, hanahaki au 

a/n: stan twice

unrequited.

you knew your love was of that nature, yet you couldn’t help but yearn for it.

for the delicate and feathery touch of the scribe’s love.

pining after him was no use, you knew. but, alas, what could you do?

he was the prestigious scribe, whilst you were a nobody, too meek to speak up to others, always uttering a small, “yes” to everything asked of you.

too shy to talk to people — terrified that you would embarrass yourself or leave a bad impression, or that you would wind up being the center of attention.

but, if you were so scared, why did you crave his attention?

every time you glanced around the classroom, fleeting gaze eventually landing on his soft grey and teal tufts of hair, and his turquoise eyes, flecked with specks of orange, you couldn’t help but wish as you stared at him, a stoic and indifferent expression plastered onto his stupidly pretty face —

wish that he could love you.

wish that he could hold you.

wish that he could look at you.

wish that he could know you.

but luck was never on your side, was it? for, you wholeheartedly expected your wishes not to be heard (and they weren’t), but lady luck had decided to make your life miserable — making the decision that having an obviously unreciprocated wasn’t enough.

and so she gave you hanahaki.

every day, as your gaze landed unconsciously on him, the vines curled around your lungs, gripping them.

flowers — fuchsia azaleas — tickled the back of your throat, being lodged there, making you cough a little.

and, alhaitham’s head turned towards the noise of coughing.

you froze, quickly collecting the petals in your hand, stuffing them into your pocket. your gaze instantly shot downwards, glued onto your notebook as your hand rapidly scribbled something down, pretending to be taking notes or writing or just doing something.

and, as you wrote, you felt monarchs fluttering in your stomach, heat rising up to your neck and face.

who knew that agony could be a little fun? 

—

but, as the days grew, your heart made it clear that it did not desire “fun”.

oh, no.

the only thing it wanted was alhaitham.

and that was made evident by the way you were now crouched on the bathroom floor, on your hands and knees, coughing out bouts of the hot pink flowers to remove the giant lump in your throat and the tickling of petals in the back of it.

the azaleas hit the previously porcelain white and neatly polished floor with a disgustingly wet noise, and, as you opened your eyes the tiniest bit, you laid your eyes on the flower.

a seemingly freshly bloomed azalea, coated with your own blood, slick with your own mucus. it laid there, some of the burgundy blood dripping down and pooling around it, coloring the dove-white floor with a splash of red.

you sat there, blankly staring at the barbie azaleas flopped on the floor. they were still covered in blood for your throat. they’re the hundredth flowers you’d coughed up today, and you had a strange mixture of apathy and horror coursing through you.

the lump in your throat felt like a knife, and the petals tickle and tickle, causing you to cough and wheeze. it was getting harder and harder to breathe. you were exhausted — from both coughing up the flowers and also from feeling this fucking unreciprocated love. but, of course, the hanahaki wouldn’t let you stop suffering until your love is returned.

if only alhaitham would look at you, talk to you, acknowledge your existence in any way.

if only you would talk to him. 

but, god, if it wasn’t hard to build up the courage.

he wouldn’t just come up and talk with you. why would you even wish that? why were you so stupid?

you hated yourself for it, wishing he would talk to you whilst not even interacting with him.

the truth was that the scribe intimidated you quite a bit, being stoic and indifferent, curt and formal to nearly anybody.

you tried to take a deep breath, but it hurt.

it hurt so, so much. 

the fuchsia azaleas covered the piece of floor in front of you almost entirely, a horrific reminder of the disease that's destroying you from the inside.

while you had been thinking, the stupidly pleasant smell of the azaleas — a dainty and delicate blend of floral honeysuckle notes— mixed with the tinged irony odor of blood, wafted upwards toward you, giving you a whiff of a smell that made you want to wretch.

you should’ve gotten the surgery when you could — now it was far too late, you were going to die for sure.

you were beyond the point of saving.

—

you stared blankly at the sheet of paper which sat before you, trying to concentrate on the lecture your teacher was giving, but your mind kept drifting off.

you kept glancing upwards, and every time you did so you saw the lightest shade of grey there could be, like a thrush’s delicate feathers, mixed with sage green, perfectly complementing the scribes clothes.

yeah, maybe you should keep your eyes on the paper. looking at him made you watch to rip your throat out and cough your lungs out.

—

you sat in your bed, curled in a small ball, fluffy white blanket bunched up around you.

the bright screen of your computer, extremely so, illuminated your face. 

you didn’t particularly want to write this essay, and what would be the point? the stupid azaleas would choke you to death eitehr way, using you as a human flower pot.

you closed the screen with a harsh thud!, drowning yourself in complete and utter darkness as the abnormally bright light emitted from the computer was sucked away.

you hastily put the computer away, curling into a tight ball on your bed.

you awaited death, hot pink azaleas tickling your throat and dreaming about the scribe, his perfectness almost alien, like the condition deteriorating you from the inside out, like a withering flower.

[naokyunnn]

★ WHAT WOULD CANCEL BLUE LOCK BOYS IN THE INTERNET ★

with — Rin, Shidou, Sae, Nagi

basically just about what canceled people have done but its blue lock characters

cw: mentions of violence (shidou and sae) mentions of reo x nagi 😭 (they’re not in a relationship here just a online inside joke in their fandom)

disclaimer: all just headcanons, all of em never happened, not canon 🫡

★ RIN

just some random day his name was just trending on twitter and people just keep on saying that “Rin is a nepo baby but his brother is the famous one” — “he’s only famous because of his brother”

honestly got canceled for no reason and he doesn’t give a fuck

he would wear those shirt with a “nepo baby” text on it

he would also get alot of backlash about his behavior. “he doesn’t wave at his fans” “he doesn’t want to take pictures together” “he flip us off”

he would go live on insta and have the funniest response on his issues (and they’re mostly used on tiktok as reaction vids)

haters wont affect him if he’s the biggest hater in this planet 🫡

and also restored tweets literally just bashing some other soccer players

★ SHIDOU

mainly literally brawling with rin in the middle of their game

“why is he still on the team anyway” “i can’t believe ya’ll still support shitdou” “all this tiktok girlies will make edits of him being this violent, poor rin :((“

people (rin’s fans) hated his guts because he always pick a fight with rin

another mf who won’t give a fuck about the internet have to say

restored tweets. mostly just saying the most horny statement known to man

has cheating allegations too

“bro thinks he’s aiku 😂” — “are they real? HAHWJSHA” — “bro he gets girlfriends?”

he enjoys being a menace in the internet, he’s fine being a clown of it or whatever he just want to piss people off

★ SAE

being literally friends with shidou 😭😭

“no wonder he’s also a meanie”— “yall need to see someone if you guys find red flags like them hot😭”— “gahdam what’s wrong with his hair🤨”

he gets alot of hate already about his attitude

said a slur once

run over a paparazzi once with his luxurious car

but people find it really hard to hate him fully because he always get the best plays whenever he’s on the field, that at the end of the day more people still will be cheering for him

one of his big issue is literally having a own fight with his OWN brother

people think that’s too far already and feels sorry for rin

“poor guy no wonder why he’s so emo he have a brother like this” — “its always the older siblings” — “this whole soccer thing is turning into a drama”

★ NAGI

he has very overly obsessed fans

yep. i like to think that aside football, he also streams online to show off his gaming skills

doesn’t care about the hate comments he gets because he know that haters can’t be avoided when you’re famous. BUT HIS FANS ON THE OTHER HAND…

if you said something that he didn’t like the world will most likely know your address or something because his fans are gnna come for you

and his fans will probably bully tf out of his haters too 😭

“nagi stans are krazy bruh dont mess with them” — “those nagi stans need jail time 😬” — “nagi control ur fandom 😐 they’re ruining lives online”

will apologize on his fans behalf

has probably said something homophobic accidentally and didn’t know it was that offensive til he reads his chats

“ayo! HAHAHAHAH don’t you have a boyfriend?”— “reo collect ur man HAHAHA” — “bro why u said that 💀”

would apologize for the lack of knowledge

nagi: guys reo is not my boyfriend, he’s my best friend y’ll

thanks for reading lads

[peachyloveswriting]

Hi can u do a Jealous Kyle?(THXS)

"Yeah. But you're mine." --- (Kyle Brovloski)

SUMMARY: Eric has always had the feels for you but it's really starting to get to Kyle.

WARNING: Slight smut, just making out that's it. Nothing too serious, recording. :).

NOTES: I've written in first person before and I do like it better than second person idk if it's gonna stick just lmk what you think.

⸝⸝⸝⸝⸝

The lunch table around me is loud, I can barely hear any coherent conversations other than my own. I find myself shouting over the table, bickering with Eric. He glares at me smugly, a glassy film over his eyes. Usually it's Kyle who yells at him but I find that the space beside me has gone silent.

"Just shut up fatass!" I snap.

He snickers at me. "Only for you."

I cringe and shake my head, adverting my gaze to the untouched plate in front of me. It's likely cold by now from being so enthralled in my argument but it's much more appealing than looking at Eric's face. I'd rather look at death in the eyes than listen to Eric make such comments about me to my face. Eric has always flirted with me though, but I've never been interested in him. It's been happening everyday since fourth grade and occasionally I stop to think; If I just said me and Kyle were dating he might stop but for the sake of my privacy, I say nothing. At the start of our relationship, we agreed to not tell anyone so we could keep it to ourselves. I was and still am perfectly fine with that, until Eric started flirting with me again.

"I'm going to go roll me one, y'all coming with me?" Kenny pipes up from the end of the table.

Kyle's hand grips mine as he stands to his feet, turning everyone's attention to us. "I'm coming." He announces. After being quiet this whole time, I feel surprised to see him suddenly jumping to volunteer for skipping class. That's not much like Kyle at all.

When we snuck out the back with our stuff, there were five of us, Kyle, Kenny, Stan, Craig, and I. Sneaking out was almost a hassle but we all managed to get away unscathed, leaving the rest of our friends behind. Now that I'm further away from school, I can collect my thoughts. Kyle never wants to openly skip like that, especially not to smoke weed.

"You sure you wanna smoke with us?" Kenny asks, looking at Kyle with curiosity. Looking over at Kenny, he shakes his head. With my hand in his, he lightly tugs me closer to his side.

"I just wanted to get out." Kyle admits sheepishly before looking ahead.

I watch Kenny's eyes widen, exchanging glances with Stan in surprise. I was honestly thinking the same thing, Kyle hasn't smoked a blunt a single day of his life and he suddenly went to smoke with Kenny. Now I know that's not actually true but that he wanted out and that never happens. Something about this whole thing is off, from openly holding hands to skipping school. It's just not like Kyle.

"If you don't mind I'm going to my car." Kyle points back towards the student parking with his thumb. Everyone bids us goodbye and he begins to pull me towards his parking spot. The silence between us feels thick on the walk over, his grip on my hand is tight. So tight that my palms are beginning to sweat. I look up at Kyle, his face is contorted into disgust and discomfort, in his eyes dances a quiet anger. One that I know is settled in his belly. I don't say anything until we reach the car, close our doors and settle in. At first I'm honestly unsure of what to say, he doesn't seem sad, but he seemed disappointed and angry. Like he's confused on what to feel and it confuses me.

"Hey." Kyle is looking out the back windshield, his arm spread to the back of my seat for leverage while he backs out. He's not looking at me. I wait until he's at a stop at the exit to grab his attention back. "Kyle, I need you to pull over up here." Kyle wat he's where I'm pointing. Though he's looking with furrowed brows and wandering eyes, he does what I ask and pulls over onto the aide of the road. His gaze meets mine, he's questioning me silently, confused by what I'm doing. I know he wants answers but I take a second to put the car in Park for him.

"Why?" He finally asks stiffly. I look back up, meeting his gaze. His eyes are searching mine for any clues. Softly taking his hand into mine and intertwining our fingers, I frown at him. There's just something he's not telling me, it's been happening for a while now. I just didn't know how to address it.

"Is something wrong?"

His face scrunches up. "What? No, Why- I'm good." Fumbling his words, Kyle shuts his lips. His gaze starts to shift away from mine, looking out the windows at other things. He's biting his lower lip, rolling it between his teeth before repeating it again. I squeeze his hand, pulling his attention back to me.

"Baby, you're not acting right. Is something wrong? Be honest."

He stares at me with contemplation falling over his looks, he's looking from my eyes, to my lips, to my hands, and finally back at my eyes. "Kinda." He says, lowering his gaze from mine and shaking his head. Suddenly a smile breaks out on my face, I knew he would say something sooner or later. A little convincing is all he needed, that satisfies a part of me that looks out for him, the one that feeds off his emotions. Not in a bad way of course.

"Tell me, I'm listening." My thumb softly brushes over his knuckles, smoothing out the skin there in time. It's a soft way to let him know I'm here, that he can speak to me. Kyle tends to shut down over certain things, some of which I haven't exactly figured out yet, but his well being matters to me. That includes whatever this is.

Slowly, Kyle shakes his head again. "I just don't like the way Cartman treats you." His eyes meet mine again. "He flirts with you all the time and it pisses me off." Venom flares from his tongue, creating a hateful edge in his voice that tells me he's annoyed. I can't help but wonder if it's because he doesn't trust me or if it's just him becoming uncomfortable.

"I'm not going to let him do anything. I promise." I squeeze his hand again, just to accentuate what I said but he shakes his head again.

"it's not that I don't trust you, it's that I don't trust him. Sure, you could ignore him or tell him off but what's going to stop him from continuously thinking of you like that." A shudder rolls off his shoulders. "I don't like the thought of that."

"I don't either, but it's best if we leave it be. It's been almost seven years and he hasn't made a real move yet. I'm sure it's fine." Part of it is true but the other half doesn't feel as reassuring outside of my head, really my only goal is to sooth Kyle's worries but I seem to be interjecting myself now. He scoffs at my words and I furrow my brows. His eyes shift from discomfort to stern and sharp, an assured glare in his gaze. Maybe not directed towards me, but it sure feels like it.

"Yes, but you're mine." The roughness in his voice washes over me in a rain of tingling sensations, like tiny pellets raining down from the sky, pelting my skin. A shudder runs down my spine again. "I don't like him thinking he has a chance with you at all." Kyle finishes. Frustratedly, he points back at the school and groans at the end. Laughing softly and taking my hand away from his, I cup his cheek with it. The grin on my face can't be helped and neither can the heat, but I press forth.

"Yes, I'm yours. But maybe you should give him a reason to stop."

Suddenly it's like a fire lights up in his eyes, creating an evil grin right along with it. The cogs turning in his head are so obvious that I can practically feel the thought forming in his head. I'm unable to get my own thoughts out before he snaps his seatbelt back and presses a hard kiss on my lips. I hum in shock, my chest squeezing strangely in response. Roughly, our lips move together, a sort of sloppy manner tied in with it. Along my shoulders are his hands almost daring to pin me back against the seat and climb over. Still, they are teasingly holding me in place. I can feel one of his hands disappear from my shoulder but I'm not really looking to see what he's doing.

His teeth sink harshly into my bottom lip, pain shooting through it. Opening my mouth with a gasp, a small noise that can only be heard as a moan escapes me. Kyle begins to smile into the kiss, his other hand sliding down to my waist while slipping his tongue into my mouth. We've made out before but it's never been this intense before. I can even feel the tension building in the pit of my stomach, the kind that begs for attention. I didn't mean for it to slip out, but when it did I think both me and Kyle were shocked. "Please." The whimper is nothing more than a pathetic cry for attention, something that hitches the breath in the back of his throat for just a moment before he pulls away grinning like crazy.

"Yeah. That's right, beg for me." Callous in his voice sends a feeling of arousal between my legs, I squeeze them together in hopes of creating more but I get nothing in response.

"God damnit, Kyle." I huff.

Very slowly, with hazy half-lit eyes, Kyle pulls away. That's when I hear it, the sound of my own small plea repeating itself. My stomach twists, Kyle lifts his phone to reveal the whole thing on recording. My cheeks flood with heat and I look away, shy.

"I'm saving that for me." He mutters.

Looking back over I can see him saving it to his phone before opening up his messages. That's when I realized the name at the top is Eric's. Face red as ever I look back up at Kyle, my lips slightly agape and eyes wide. "Shit, that was hot."

Kyle snorts. Clicking the phone off, he looks at me. "I know it was. But it won't be for him."

"What if everyone sees?" I ask.

He puts the car back in drive with a proud grin on his lips. "They can look all they want." His hand comes to rest on my knee, squeezing softly. "At least they'll know you're mine."

[marauder-exe]

Press Tour- Sebastian Stan

A/N: this is a rewrite of a fic from like 5 years ago, if you want to check out the original here to see how much has changed. Feel free to leave requests! PLEASE LEAVE FEEDBACK IN COMMENTS OR ASKS PLS i need to know if i’m still writing like i’m 14 😭

Word count:1.9K 

Bang Bang Bang 

Your eyes shot open as the incessant knocking reverberated the walls of your small apartment. You looked across the dimly lit room and threw a glance at your alarm clock. 3AM? Who is knocking on your door at 3AM? Whoever it is better be dying, or they will wish they were in a minute.  You slipped on your night gown, and slipped your socks on, the cold floor shocking your system for a second.  You threw open the door to your bedroom and trudged to your door, still reeling from your rude early morning awakening. You opened the door, not expecting a drenched Sebastian Stan at your door, surrounded by a few bags of things, equally soaked from the rain that was currently hammering against your windows.  

“God Seb its 3AM, get in here.” You rushed him inside, taking note of his shivering. you had met Seb 6 months ago. You had been cast in the same movie, with you sporting a slightly smaller role than him. It was one of your first in Hollywood, being a fresh 20 something coming onto the scene, so you sought out Sebastian for advice. Since then, most days on set were spent together, running lines, or sneaking food from the buffet into your trailers for little dinners together when you got the chance. He has taken to you so well, and you would say you were closer to him than anyone you had met in the film industry so far. Your friends would claim you had a little crush on him, but some things are better left unaddressed.   

“What are you doing at my door at 3AM?” You let out a slight chuckled at the absurdity of the situation, whilst collecting some of the bags that sat at your doorway. You had secretly hoped for some sappy love declaration in the rain like you'd seen in the movies, but judging by the look on his face, and the bags that lingered outside the door, you figured that would be a bit of a stretch.  

“Funny story actually” He let out an awkward laugh and rubbed the back of his neck. “My neighbour, he, did something, I'm not too sure what, but the whole floor of apartments is flooded, including mine.” He looked around sheepishly and took in your apartment. It was cute and dainty, much like yourself. He took note of some of the things hanging across the walls. Posters of a few movies you’d been in, certificates from high school, pictures of you and your friends. He saw a picture that he had taken of you two on the set front and centre, smiling at the memory.  

“So you came here?” You stared at him as you grabbed a towel and some blankets from the cupboard. He stared back with a smile.  

“Where else?” He spoke, making a smile break out on your face, and tiny butterflies float in your stomach. You knew Sebastian had never thought of you the way you thought of him. He was a lot older, and likely viewed you as a little sister more than anything. But it's not wrong for a beautiful man to give you butterflies, right?  

You moved back to the couch to hand him the towels and blankets. “Well stay here as long as you like.” Offering him a warm smile. “Let me get changed and we can sort everything out.” With that you rushed back into your room and threw on some shorts and a vest top. You popped back out of your room and started to make some hot chocolate, Seb's favourite. “So, when do they think they will have everything fixed?” 

“They said it'll be about a week, so I should be out of your hair soon.” He let out a small laugh, still watching you.  

“Not too soon I hope, you know I love best friend time.” You let out a small smile, still focused on heating up the milk. If you hadn't been so preoccupied, you would've seen the look he was giving you, and you would've known it wasn't a look that best friends give each other. 

That day, however, was 3 weeks ago now. Now, you two were dressed up to the nines, and about to leave for your first press conference.  

“Seba! Come on!” You shouted through the door of your apartment. Turns out it wasn't a week to fix his apartment, it wasn't even a month. There had been no news on his apartment for the last 3 weeks, so he had been staying on your couch indefinitely. You didn't mind, you revelled in everyday spent with him, like a dream come true.  

He stepped out of the room, and you couldn't help but stare, he cleans up very well. In a way that makes you sweat just a little more and your mouth run dry. You offered him a smile, trying to distract from the blush creeping up your neck.  

“Do I look okay?” You asked quietly, noticing the way his eyes racked up and down your figure. You wore a fitting dress, something recommended by your stylist, it had to be special for your first press conference. 

“You look...” He didn't finish, as he drunk in your appearance, just the sight of you intoxicated him. Safe to say his feelings had grown over the shared time in your apartment, but that was something he could never admit to you. He was supposed to be a mentor, not fall in love with you for Christ's sake. During your time spent together, he felt as though he got to know you on a deeper level, days filled with midnight talks and cooking together, I mean it's hard not to fall for someone like you.  

“Seb?” You questioned, waving your hand in his face after a minute of silence and an unfinished sentence.  

“Yeah, yeah I'm great.” He pulled himself out of his thoughts, as a smile spread across his face as he stared down at you. The car beep outside took both of your attention, as he snaked a hand around your waist. “Our carriage awaits, my dear.” You both laughed as you headed to the door, nervous as ever.  

You slipped through the double doors of the hall, Sebastian protectively behind you. You glanced back at him with a nervous smile, your head feeling fuzzy before you had even entered. He instinctively squeezed your hand and whispered calming notions in your ear. You walked into the centre of the hall with Sebastian in tow. As soon as you stepped up, a chorus of ‘look over here’, ‘Sebastian’, ‘Y/N’ rang out, and blinding flashes of pictures being taken. It all felt like too much. You glance up at Sebastian, and e gave you a warm smile, and snaked his hand around your waist, something that instantly calmed you. You felt ready to take it all on. 

After hours of interviews, intricate questions and plenty of pictures, you and Sebastian barged through the door of your apartment and threw yourselves on the couch. Sebastian loosened his tie and undid his top button, whilst you took your hair out and jewellery of before falling back into his arm that was threw across the couch.  

“Why didn't you tell me press conferences were SO exhausting?” You sighed, loving the feeling of the soft couch treating your back. 

“I couldve told you that, lovely.” He laughed a little, settling into the couch. And thats how you drifted off, for the next 12 hours. Shoes strewn across the floor and bits of your outfits across the coffee table. 

The repeptitive sound of your phone buzzing woke you up. As you moved to reach for it, Sebastian stirred and woke up, glancing up at you through his lashes. “What time is it?” His groggy voice came. 

“Oh sorry i didnt mean to wake you, its 10Am, and my phone is going crazy” The phone screen lit up your face as you looked at the countless notifications on your phone. Your eye was caught by a text from your friend that read ‘YOU AND SEBASTIAN STAN ARE TOGETHER ARE YOU SERIOUS?’. Your eyebrows knitted together in confusion as you continuted to scroll and finally opened twitter. Sebastian moved closer to you to see what had caused your silence. Your screen lit up with photos of you from the press conference, with the hashtag #AVImovie. 

“Guess the press tour photos havfe been released.” He chuckled, thinking over last night. 

“i guess so, i dont know why my friends are blowing me up though.’ You clicked on the screen and saw a collage of misleading hashtags. #sebsgf. #couple. #AVImovie. What is going on? You clicked on a hashtag and scrolled. Hundreds of the same photo. You and sebastian centred, his arm around your waist, and staring into eachothers eyes. They had all kinds of captions. ‘i want someone to look at me the way she looks at him.’ Oh god, if he didnt know you liked him before, he might be getting the picture. Another headline, ‘Sebastian Stan smitten on the carpet with co-star Y/N’. You turned to look at Sebastian, who had the most horrified expression on his face. Gut Punch. Fucking Twitter. You coughed awkwardly, hoping to draw the attention away from the never ending stream of notifications.  

“Okay, you dont have to look at me like the mere thought of being with me would end the world” You got up from the ciuch and cleared your throat.  

He just stared at you, day old makeup, with a bedhead. He stared like you were the last thing on earth. He realised they were absolutely right. He was completely smitten by you. He rushed to follow you. “Wait thats not whats happening.” He gripped your arm lightly and turned you to face him. You looked up at him through your lashes expectantly. “Theyre right.” he said, barely above a whisper. 

“Whos right?” You looked to him confused. 

“The people, the people on the phone, i am completely smitten with you” He chcukled lightly, throwing a glance toward your phone. 

Ypur breateh hitched in your throat. “I thought you only thought of me like a sister, Seb you literally said that to me not 6 months ago.” 

He ran a hand through his hair. “I know, but that was before i started staying here,  and i saw you in a whole different light” He cupped your face with his hand and stared at you hopefully. But you didnt have to say anything. You just leaned in and brused his lips against yours. 

“i think theyre right about me too.” You whispered before closing the gap between you too. So much emotion got poured into the kiss, months of waiting, watching, hoping, all being taken out in your living room at 10AM. It was everything you had both imagined it to be. Soft. Passionate. Felt like a dream come true. You both pulled away breathlessly, staying close. 

“You know,” He whsipered softly, “My apartment was fixed last week.” A sneaky smile grew across his face as you pulled away, slack jawed, an incredulous look on your face. 

“You bastard!” You shouted playfully, giggling as you threw a pillow at him. He caught it swiftly, and picked you up as you let out a loud laugh. 

[astro-b-o-y-d]

Triangulum - Chapter 7 - Died and Dashed

(Content warning; contains light mentions of blood and injuries. Reader discretion is advised. This fic will also contain spoilers from The Book of Bill going forward.)

— — — — — — — It had taken Stan twenty minutes to calm down this time around.

Twenty minutes, a few dents in the walls of the boat, a couple of busted knuckles as a result of said dents—eh, semantics.

Honestly it was a miracle he’d made it back to the boat before he started swinging. If he’d stayed there any longer, there was a not-zero chance that the little bastard would’ve ended up with another black eye.

If not him, then—

“No, Stanley.”

Stan’s gauze-bound grip tightened on the paper in his hand, and he shook his head before turning back to the desk. “Come on, Stan—you can’t be thinkin’ like that…”

He’d been lucky enough to snag a decent-sized handful of the photocopied journal pages from his safe, although he’d taken great care to light any remaining portal schematics on fire and stomp the smoldering remains until they were nothing but ash.

…Probably a dangerous thing to do while in a boat made of wood. But hey, he wasn’t taking any chances!

With a sigh, he shifted irritably between a page about gnomes and one dedicated to ‘Category 3 Ghosts’. Boy, he sure wished he’d thought of that idea over thirty years ago! He sure wish he hadn’t been too blinded by his anger to think clearly and had actually done something smart at that specific moment in time! Or had actually followed Ford’s request and gotten on a boat, sailed far away from everything and buried the book where Bill couldn’t get his grimy little hands on it!

He sure wish he would’ve done any of the other smart, logical ideas at that point in time, instead of just making his brother’s life worse like he always did.

Speaking of which—

His gaze fell to a collection of pages that Ford had added after his return to their dimension. Sure, he had kept his journals at arm’s length by the time he’d gotten around to writing the back half of the third one, but Stan hadn’t spent the past thirty years perfecting the art of pickpocketing for nothing. It’d practically been child’s play to sneak up to the kids’ room while Dipper was asleep—said journal clutched tightly against his face in a perfect mirror of Mabel snuggled up to her stuffed animals—quietly nab the book outta his hands for the night, and slip it back into place before he woke up the next morning.

The specific pages in question discussed one of the dimensions that Ford had visited in his travels. A better world, as he’d labeled it in his writing. Whatever had happened there, the Ford of that dimension was thriving because his Stan had actually listened to him. The Stan of that dimension still possessed worth to his brother.

Stan pressed a hand to his hair with another rugged sigh. Geez, was this really going to work? Was he really going to find some miraculous way to stop Bill in all this mess, when Ford hadn’t even found one back when said mess was still all in one piece?

And even if he did, did he really think any of this would prove himself useful to Ford?

He slowly slid his hand down his face in exasperation, before glancing over at the desk again—

Hang on.

He turned back to the alternate dimension pages again, squinting close at a series of paragraphs near the end. Most of it was just a bunch of science-y mumbo-jumbo that Stan didn’t care enough about to decipher, but the majority seemed to discuss the creation of a power source alongside the parallel-dimension’s Old Man McGucket.

A topic that sparked something in Stan’s mind as his thoughts drifted back to Ford’s words from the previous evening:

“The only power source stable enough to power the device was only obtainable in another dimension, with the assistance of another another dimension’s Fiddleford McGucket.”

Hmm.

After staring at it for another moment of thoughtful contemplation, he moved to add the pages to the already-sorted stack on the other side of the desk. Just before he could go of them, however, the door to the cabin burst open with a loud bang—causing Stan to jump about three inches in his seat before spinning around in his seat to confront the source of the noise. “Hey, pal, whaddaya th—”

Most of the anger that had been building up escaped Stan with an exhale of relief when his eyes landed on a familiar plaid shirt and head of red hair tucked under a blue-and-white hat. “What, are you tryin’ to give me a heart attack, Wendy?!” he asked, lowering the fists he had instinctively formed. “You realize at my age, that could count as attempted murder.”

“Sorry,” Wendy said, kicking the door shut behind her. “Just needed to get away from the crowd for a bit.”

“Yeesh, is it that bad?” he asked, and leaned towards the nearest window to peek out of the blinds. “Thought the party only just got started a bit ago?”

“Yeah, a party with everyone in town,” she reminded him as she sank against the wall into a sitting position. “Most of which are all here by this point. Just saying, even the Woodstick festival has certified ‘Quiet Tents’ where you can sit and breathe air that hasn’t been breathed in by hundreds of other people yet.”

After a few more seconds of staring at the crowd, Stan let the blinds flick shut again. “Touché.”

She watched him turn back to the desk, raising an eyebrow at the papers still clutched in his fist. “So, you plan on joining them anytime soon?” she asked. “After all, the reason nearly everyone in town’s gathered here is for your family. And at least three-quarters of that family are off doing their one thing.”

“Hey, listen—” Stan began, then paused. “Wait, three-quarters?”

“Yeah, like the doc said earlier, it’d take a while for him to deactivate the security room,” she explained. “So Mabel’s been out in the woods this whole time waiting for him to finish.”

“And they’re still not back ye—hold on,” Stan said, his train of thought once again interrupted as he ticked off a few fingers. “...So if those two-quarters are there—” He flicked a thumb towards himself. “And one’s in here, that means one’s out with the party, then?”

“Yeah, that’s how fractions work,” Wendy confirmed, her raised eyebrow ascending further. “And knowing who the first three are, I think we can probably guess which fourth it is.”

After a few seconds of putting the pieces together, Stan slapped a hand to his forehead. “Yeesh, whose bright idea was it to leave Dip as the party guy?”

“His and Mabel’s actually,” Wendy said. “Decided that one of them should stick around while the other rushed off to help your brother, since you were too busy doing whatever you’ve been doing here on the boat to do it yourself.”

Stan pointed a warning finger in her direction. “Watch it, Corduroy, I told you kids that this was none of your business.”

“I know it’s not,” she said. “And I don’t care one way or another how you two deal with all of this.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “But do you think Dipper and Mabel are gonna just take it lying down? They’re just as stubborn as you are, and if you’re not gonna keep stepping up to the plate to try and help your brother out, then they’re gonna do it for you.” 

She tapped her knuckles against the wall behind her. “That includes either running off to help him out and missing a party they really wanna be at, or being the only Pines at that same party and spending most of that time stressing about everything by himself.”

Stan considered this for a moment, before rising from his chair with a sigh. “You ain’t subtle, you know?”

“Wasn’t trying to be.”

Stan shot her a smirk in response, before he rose from his chair and started making his way to the door.. “If you wanna keep hidin’ out in here, then fine,” he said, stuffing the papers still clutched in his hand into his jacket pocket. “Just don’t let anyone else in, and don’t touch the stuff on the desk.”

“Aye aye, captain,” she said, giving him a salute.

The door swung shut behind him and the cabin fell silent, save for the muffled sound of partygoers in the yard outside. Wendy remained still for a few minutes more, letting her eyes drift shut for a second as she enjoyed the moment of peace—

—until the buzzing of her phone in her pocket drew her attention elsewhere and she flipped it open to investigate.

— — — — — — —

The first thing Bill was able to process was a throbbing pain in his forehead.

The second thing was that he was able to feel pain at all.

With a sharp inhale of breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, his head snapped upright—functional pupil darting about wildly as he tried to process his surroundings. 

He was—

—still in the bunker?

Heh?

Judging by the vintage technology that surrounded him—technology that Ford had foolishly assumed would keep him and his country bumpkin pal safe from any apocalyptic harm (spoiler alert, Fordsy, it wouldn’t have)—there was no doubt that he was still situated down in the bunker’s observation room. Same exact spot, same exact technology, same exact—

—blood pooling beneath him?

Second verse, same as the first—heh?

With the unicorn-hair-rope still tightly bound around his body, Bill shifted awkwardly in place to get a clearer look at the fresh blood that now decorated the control panel beneath his legs. And not just the control panel; a struggled rotation of his body revealed more blood splattered against the metal and tech—with a single bullet embedded in the spot where everything was thickest and most concentrated.

A bullet about the size of the area on his forehead where a throbbing, searing pain—pain far worse than being clunked on the back of the skull with a bat—was culminating to one specific point. 

The same area where blood—blood as bright and fresh as the splatters around him—slowly trickled down the center of his face at the edge of his vision, before finally dripping down from his chin to join the rest beneath him.

Oh.

Oh.

It wasn’t the first time Ford had shot him with a gun. There was the time Bill had raised a horde of zombies from the dead to try and give him a gentle…nudge in the right direction. Not to mention their delightful little reunion back during Weirdmageddon, although Ford’s aim definitely hadn’t gotten better across three decades.

But this felt far more different than a blast of energy through his hat-flesh, or a quick de-possessing of a zombie after Ford splattered its brains all over the cold, winter ground with a cheesy one-liner. And if Bill didn’t have more pressing matters to deal with, he would’ve punctuated that jab at Ford’s humor with a firm suggestion for the old man to not seek a career in the field of comedy.

But unfortunately, now wasn’t the time for a cheeky “Don’t quit your day job, Fordsy!” or other hilarious remark on his end.

He tore his gaze from the blood and turned back to the front, that sense of wrongness only swelling further at the sight of Ford once again frozen in time. And as if on cue, every color in the observation room began to slowly trickle down to the floor and converge towards the center of the room, same as they had done back in the study. 

Bill barely had time to roll his eyes before the shifting mess of colors morphed into a familiar, orange tint—seconds before taking on the even-more-familiar form of the shelduck. “Wow, it’s about time!” they said joyfully once they had fully formed. “And here I was starting to worry that I’d have to go the entire summer without getting a chance for us to talk again!”

They turned around to take a look at their surroundings. “Huh, so they took you down to the bunker after all,” they observed. “Half expected them to try something in the underground lab first, but I guess this one would probably want to keep you outta the house as much as possible.”

The last comment was directed at the stilled Ford, along with a bat of their eyelashes in his direction. “You know, I’ve always been more partial to the other one, but even I can’t deny that the Hot Twin gene clearly extends to both of them,” they said, leaning closer to him with a studious look. “Let me tell you, that evolution of sideburns to a beard is nice…”

They spun to face Bill again. “But enough about all that, let’s get to the actual reason I’m here!” they said, pressing a balled fist against their forehead. “And how I feel like a massive idiot for letting you dive right into my game without covering the—oh, hold on, you might want to get rid of those binds first.”

With a snap, the binds of the rope went completely slack and Bill slid from the control panel to the floor with a surprised yelp—earning a small chuckle from Tangy and an outstretched hand to help him to his feet. “Sorry, maybe I should’ve set you down on the floor first—oh!”

Tangy barely had time to retract their arm before a yellow-and-black blur came charging at them with a furious shout. “You!” Bill snapped at them, teeth bared as he prepared to launch himself at them again. “You think you’re so clever, don’t you Birdbrain?!”

Forget any previous niceties he might’ve put on before; he was going to get some clear answers out of Tangy if it was the last thing he did! Even if it meant following up on his promise of plucking every single feather out of their sorry, orange hide!

Unfortunately for Bill, any harm he attempted to inflict on them went unfulfilled, as they slid out of his way just in time for him to go crashing back to the floor on the other side of the observation room. “Trying to catch me off guard?” they asked, once again spinning to face him with a wide smile. “Honestly not a bad attempt, I didn’t see it coming!”

Bill was back on his feet in an instant, trembling with sheer aggression for the being before him. Were they mocking him?! Who did they think they were?!

In fact—

“Who do you think you are, pal?!” he asked—shouted aloud. “Do you have any idea who you’re messing with here? I’m the most powerful being in the whole Multiverse, and if you think I’m gonna stand here and take this from you—”

“Of course you’re not, Bill,” Tangy said, taking a step towards him. “You want me to tell you why I’m here, what’s going on, why you’re not dead after—”

They made a gesture with their hand towards the mess of blood that Bill had left behind. “You want answers, I understand. Well, lucky for you—I think—you went and got yourself killed, so I’m able to correct a few of the mistakes I made during our last conversation—”

Another gesture, and suddenly a piece of paper flashed into view between them. “—starting with the rules I forgot to explain to you~!”

Despite the adrenaline rush from his failed attempted to attack them, Bill once again found his rage taking a backseat to curiosity as he stared at the paper. “Rules? What rules? You didn’t mention any rules.”

A beat, before he thumped a fist to his chest. “Not that I would’ve listened to ��em anyway!” he insisted. “Rules are just another way of telling someone the things they’re not allowed to do, and I’m the kinda shape who does whatever he wants whenever he wants!”

“Oh, not to worry,” they assured him. “It’s less a list of what you can’t do during the game, and more—” 

They snapped a few times in an attempt to find the proper words. “—let’s call it an FAQ about how the game itself operates. Maybe the first few might apply to you at most, but overall they’re far more restricting for me than they are for you. Either way, I felt bad about not covering them with you before so I thought discussing them while we’ve got time now would be best.”

Bill glanced at the paper with an unimpressed look. “...You filmed an elaborate promotional ad about how the game works but wrote the rules on a piece of paper?”

“Like I told you before, the movie’s a work in progress,” Tangy explained. “Plus most of my other clients tend to appreciate having all the rules in a place where they can properly read and digest them, as opposed to a quick-moving motion picture where they might miss something.”

With a roll of his eyes, Bill turned his attention back to the paper hovering before him. Unlike the wacky lettering used in Birdbrain’s video, the font was clear and black, with the following text written in easy-to-read letters:

Rules of The Shelduck’s Game:

Once you start playing a game, you must continue to the end. So no agreeing to play if you think you can’t handle it!

Once a player agrees to playing a game, they are rendered safe from any obstacles that might permanently halt their attempts to play the game to the end. Obstacles exempt from this rule all depend on the game’s setting and other surrounding factors, but most obstacles should be unable to permanently halt the player’s progress in the game.

The Shelduck is allowed to add additional rules to the list, based on the specific game chosen. However, they can only do this before the game starts and the player must be informed ahead of time, to avoid any unfair play.

The Shelduck cannot directly interfere with the gameplay itself, but they can offer hints and advice if a player gets stuck!

If you win your game, you are granted your reward. If you lose, you win…nothing! Of course!

You are allowed to request nearly anything as a grand prize; however, the Shelduck is more within their rights to deny any requests they see unfit to grant.

Don’t forget to have fun! :) It is a game, after all!

Yeesh, were Birdbrain’s previous clients a bunch of kindergarteners? Their list of rules read more like something a teacher would tack on their classroom wall rather than the rules for some interdimensional game of chance and skill.

Despite the juvenile formatting however—Bill was silent as he once again took in every word, letter, punctuation mark on the page during several read-overs of its contents. At the very least, their list seemed pretty pretty cut and dry—most questions answering themselves in the next sentence before he even had a chance to ask them aloud and overall leaving little room for the kind of trickery he might’ve played on someone with one of his own deals.

Of course, little room for trickery didn’t mean that there was no trickery to be found at all. Especially due to the fact that Tangy had only chosen to spring the list on him now, after he’d already agreed to play their stupid game!

Oh, right, he was mad at them about something—

“Forget your lousy rules!” he said aloud, making an effort—a failed effort—to kick the paper away. “They’re not the only thing you didn’t bother to tell me about! What about the vessel I’m using? Or the fact that you dropped me down right in front of Sixer and the rest of his stupid family?”

“To answer in order,” Tangy said. “You never asked about the body thing. You just assumed the entire time that you’d be using my body as your vessel. The thought of being in a completely different body never crossed your mind. As for the other thing—”

They winked at him. “Alright, you got me; jerk move on my part! But hey, you were the one who chose to cackle wildly in front of them as soon as you woke up! Can’t exactly blame me for that one!”

Bill scowled irritably. “Alright, well, explain why it looks so much like—”

He pointed a finger at his face, followed by a gesture to his entire being. “Oh, that?” Tangy asked, tapping a finger against the bottom of their bill. “Hmm, that’s a good question, actually. Honestly it was kind of a difficult decision to figure out what your body should look like for the game. I had plenty of options to choose from—”

A clap of their hands summoned several pictures of a variety of people, most of which possessed a familiar, black-and-yellow color scheme. “I could’ve gone for a taller and fancier look—” 

A gesture towards the picture of a tall, thin man dressed in a fancy suit and an eyepatch. 

“—or perhaps something a bit more modern—” 

Another gesture to a picture of what was assumed to be a larger woman with darker skin and curly, golden locks of hair.

“—or heck, I could’ve gone the ‘102 Deeds for Teddie McLowd’ route and plunked you into something that wasn’t even human!”

They outright grabbed the picture of a yellow sphynx cat and held it towards him. 

“—but in the end, I felt like my best bet was making it look like a body you’d possessed in recent memory.”

With a snap of their fingers, every picture vanished from sight again and they tossed their hands up with a shrug. “I did consider giving you one that resembled Blendin Blandin for a spell. But he’s kinda been MIA for a while so I just went with the one you have now.”

They looked him up and down again. “Personally, I think this one suits you much better, anyway~!”

“Personally, I think a pile of reassembled molecules and burnt feathers suits you much better than your current form,” Bill said with a sneer. “I say again; I bet you think you’re sooooo smart with that little ‘ooh, Bill, I forgot to tell you the rules, along with all this super-important information you probably needed to know ahead of time’ stunt of yours—”

“Not a stunt,” Tangy said, hand to their forehead. “I did genuinely forget, and you have every right to be mad at me.”

“Regardless,” Bill continued. “None of your nonsense is gonna do me any good now. I’m—”

He paused, a hand slowly moving to his forehead as he turned to look back at the mess on the control panel behind him. “I’m—dead?”

It was more of a statement than a question, genuine confusion painting his features for a brief second as he lowered his hand, pale fingertips now stained red. “I’m dead…”

Confusion, the faintest specks of grief and fear—

And back was his anger again as he snapped his glare at Tangy. “Which means now I can’t even play your stupid game! What d’you have to say about that, Birdbrain?!”

“Oh, right, that’s the other thing I came here to talk to you about,” Tangy said. “Funny enough, it ties back in with the rules thing! So I guess me forgetting to cover them before kinda all worked out~!”

They reached for the paper with the rules, and pointed to the first two for Bill to see with a few taps for emphasis:

Once you start playing a game, you must continue to the end. So no agreeing to play if you think you can’t handle it!

Once a player agrees to playing a game, they are rendered safe from any obstacles that might permanently halt their attempts to play the game to the end. Obstacles exempt from this rule all depend on the game’s setting and other surrounding factors, but most obstacles should be unable to permanently halt the player’s progress in the game.

Bill stared for a moment, then gave them an unconvinced look. “Alright, so what?”

“Any player playing one of my games is safe from nearly any obstacles that might stop them from playing the game,” Tangy paraphrased. “And on top of that, they have to keep playing the game until the end. Which means—?”

“Birdbrain, if you don’t explain what you mean in five seconds, I’m actually going to pluck every single one of your head feathers out and use them to stuff a throw pillow made of pure gold.”

“Okay, first of all, that cannot possibly be comfortable to sit on—”

“Comfort comes second to power.”

“—second of all, what I mean is that any players playing the game are contractually-bound to keep playing until the very end of the game. Your game ends in approximately three months~!”

They made a ‘go-on’ motion with their hand. “Which means—?”

“I don’t know,” Bill said irritably. “That you bring me back to life after I get a bullet in my skull so I can keep playi—”

A beat of realization struck. “Oh, okay, I see what’s happening now.”

“Bingo~!” Tangy said, giving him a thumbs up. “You’re not really dead, it’s just more of a—let’s say a ‘lost life’ scenario. Like in a video game where you have a handful of extra lives stored up, so you just pop back to normal after dying without losing any progress!”

They winked at him. “And before you ask: no, there’s no limit on your metaphorical lives! You can pop back as many times as you need to throughout the course of the game!”

Bill considered this for a moment. Okay, so Birdbrain was clever enough to think that far ahead. Sure, he was currently bouncing around a few multidimensional recipes for a nice roasted duck in his skull, but at the very least, he was still alive. 

A thought that eased some of his initial concerns, banishing them back to the darker, more repressed corners of his mind where they belonged! “Alright, so I’m not actually dead now, and I assume I can’t actually die throughout the game—”

“For the most part, yes—”

“Woah, woah—” Bill snapped at them, both in tone and with two quick snaps of his fingers. “Nope, you’re not glossing over that. What do you mean ‘for the most part’?”

“As rule two explains,” Tangy said, once again giving the paper a tap. “You’re rendered mostly safe from any obstacles that might stop you from playing the game. However, there could be some obstacles that might override that rule and provide more of a danger to any players. But not to worry in that regard; that’s more of an extreme case scena—”

They were cut off by the quick motion of Bill grabbing a handful of their shirt and yanking them downwards so the two of them were at eye level. “Birdbrain, I have been jerked around enough over the past twenty-four hours,” he said, face once again beet red out of sheer rage. “So I’m gonna tell you what you’re gonna do now, Citrus Breath! You’re gonna stop pulling my leg, and you’re gonna explain to me what the f—wait, what are you doing?”

Bill’s anger was abruptly halted as Tangy—still showing no sign of annoyance or irritation with the vitriol he spat at them—took his hand in theirs and began to roll up the left sleeve of his jacket. “Yet another thing I forgot to mention,” they said, giving him an apologetic look. “I’m not doing this on purpose, I swear! I’m just a bit scatterbrained at times!”

Bill narrowed his eyes. “A bit?”

“Anyway, look—”

They held up his arm to reveal something on the wrist. A small picture—or more accurately, a—

And now the halted anger was forgotten completely as Bill stared at the object embedded into the skin on his wrist. A glowing, familiar speck that Bill had only just processed he had been missing up until this point—the very idea of it being truly lost to him containing enough power to quell any rage as he gently touched his other hand to it. “Is that—”

“I was originally going to make it an orange,” Tangy explained, a sudden and genuine warmth to their tone. “But after some consideration, I thought a more…personal route for your method of contact would be more appropriate.”

Bill continued to stare at the glittering speck for a moment more, before casting a dirty look up at them. “Again I repeat; woah, woah, we’re not glossing over that! What do you mean method of contact? What’d you do to it?”

“To it, I mostly just tattooed it into your skin,” Tangy explained. “Thought it’d be easier to keep track of than your old storage method, which would’ve gotten lost very quickly if I’d given you one—”

They cast a glance up at the top of his head, before looking to his arm again. “But as for why I did that, I thought it’d be the easiest way to get ahold of me if you needed any help during your game.”

They gave the tattoo a light pair of taps with their finger. “Two taps, and you’ll be brought here into the mindscape to chat with me,” they explained further. “If you’re having trouble locating a piece of the triangle charm, or if you just wanna talk to someone, just double-tap and I’ll be here~!”

Their smile widened. “And to answer your question from before, it also doubly acts as a safeguard for your body. So long as you have this little speck on your wrist, you’ll be able to pop back to life and keep playing the game. Does that make sense?”

“And if I somehow don’t have it on my wrist?”

“Well, then you’d better be super careful, haha!” Tangy said with a laugh. “But not to worry there, the chance of anything being able to truly get rid of it is slim to none. At the same time, though, I’m only so powerful and something could always come along that could override my ability to keep you safe. And I’d rather be honest about my shortcomings than not.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet…”

After staring at the little speck for a few more seconds, Bill yanked his hand free from Tangy’s and forcefully tugged his sleeve back down over his arm. “So, got any other big bombshells you conveniently ‘forgot’ to tell me about, or am I free to get back to your dumb little game now?”

Tangy tapped their chin. “I thiiiiink that’s everything I needed to say for now,” they said with an apologetic smile. “Again though, I am sorry I forgot to tell you about all of this. That one’s totally on me, and I don’t blame you for being mad.”

They tossed their hands in the air. “But hey, everything I told you before is still in effect~! If you win this game, I’m contractually obligated to pop that weirdness barrier like a balloon for you!”

A wink. “Remember, you’ve got three whole months to find all the pieces of my puzzle and win your prize~!”

“Again I ask: how do I know there’s not something more to the game that you conveniently ’forgot’ to tell me about?” Bill asked flatly. “For all I know, you could’ve hidden the pieces somewhere where I’ll never be able to find them. Or you could’ve just kept them stored in your mindscape while I’m off on some wild goose chase!”

…As annoyed as he was, he was not about to pass up an opportunity for another good bird pun.

“Heh, good one,” Tangy said. “But no, that’d be against several of the rules on my list.”

With a snap, the list of rules flew back to their hand and they uncrumpled it to point towards rules three and four. “Remember, I’m bound by the same contract you are.”

“Yeah, and how do I know you’re not just lying about that?” Bill pointed out, folding his arms across his chest. “Come on, Birdbrain, did you forget who you were talking to? I’ve been in this line of work since before you were an egg popping outta your duck mom’s cloaca! Do you really think you’ll be able to satiate me with pretty reassurances, especially with how much you’ve already forgotten to tell me up until this point?”

He narrowed his eyes. “If you really think I’m gonna take any of this lying down, then you’re even more of a birdbrain than I initially thought.”

“You raise an excellent point, Bill,” they said. “I guess there’s no actual way to prove that I have to stick to my contract. I mean, you could always talk to my boss about it, but—”

A loud beeping on their wrist pulled their attention to the watch that had conveniently been hidden by the sleeve of their windbreaker. “Oh shoot, my time’s almost up for this bout of help,” they said quickly. “Okay so once we’re done talking, your body should pop back to the way it was before you died—”

“Wait, hold on—”

“Also as an apology for all my forgetfulness—and to even prove to you that I really am trying to help you out—I’ll do you a favor this time and keep the bonds you had around your body cut once you’re outside the Mindscape,” Tangy continued. “Can’t do much in terms of cutting them or directly interfering after that, but I think I can get away with doing it this one time. You were already trying to cut through them anyway—I think it’d be a plausible enough outcome without too much meddling on my end.”

“Birdbrain, if you don’t stop talking right now and answer me—!”

“Sorry, Bill, but there’s only so much I can do at the moment,” they said. “Anyway, good luck! Remember: tap the speck twice if you need a hint—although sometimes their might be a cooldown period, so don’t go tapping it all willy-nilly and waste your chances to talk to me!”

“Oh, so that’s another thing you forgot to tell me—”

Before Bill could threaten them further, their form began to shake and dissolve, before their color sank back into the floor and slowly returned to the rest of the room.

And time unfroze.

— — — — — — —

The first three seconds after Ford fired the gun had been a rush of pure elation. 

A brief moment of unbridled satisfaction, one where nothing else mattered besides the fact that he had once again pointed a gun at Bill Cipher and come out the victor.

It was around the fourth second that the shock finally set in—numbing horror overtaking all other emotions as he stared at the lifeless body sprawled across the control panel before him.

“Can’t bear to aim a gun at another family member? Especially not your little paranormal protege?”

The gun clattered to the floor of the observation room as Ford’s hands—the specks of blood that had coated his left fingertips in the backspatter the least of his worries—found his face. 

He’d screwed up.

He’d let himself fall victim to another one of Bill’s horrible tricks, let that damn triangle get in his head once again. All he had needed to do was ignore him long enough to store him into one of the cryogenic tubes, and his troubles would’ve been over.

But even after all this time, he was unable to resist grabbing hold of the obvious bait Bill had dangled in front of him, like chum before the world’s most gullible shark. Of course Bill had been saving the appearance card as a last resort—probably in the hopes of pushing Ford to the brink and allowing himself to be freed from his vessel. 

And look at how well that method had worked in Bill’s favor! Now the aforementioned vessel was dead, leaving the current whereabouts of his soul unknown and his overall existence far more dangerous than it had been before. All thanks to his inability to stop listening to anything that came out of that wretched triangle’s mouth!

Ford’s right hand found the edge of the control panel—far enough from the body to avoid any additional blood on his hands—shoulders trembling as a whirlwind of questions began to swell inside his mind. Questions, anxieties, guilt—

What was he going to tell his family? That he’d buckled under the pressure and done the one thing he’d been trying to avoid for the past twenty-four hours? That the fate of the world, the universe—of everything was now currently up in the air, due to his foolish, pathetic lapse in anger? Would they be furious with him for not letting them help? Disappointed? …Would Stanley be both—?

“Grunkle Ford?”

Ford was back at full height in an instant as a familiar voice called out to him from the security room. When the culprit continued to remain hidden from sight, he replied in a voice that was far too small to be his own: “Mabel?”

A beat as he looked to the body, then snapped his gaze back to the doorway. “Don’t—just stay out there, okay?” he said quickly, words forming on their own. “If you have to come in here, keep your eyes covered! Do you understand?”

“I’m not looking,” she answered just beyond the doorway. “I—I heard the gunshot, and—”

Her words were shaking, trembling just as badly as Ford’s entire being as he returned one hand to the control panel to steady himself. “Wh…Mabel, why are you here?” he asked. “I told you to—”

“I was waiting in the stairwell,” she explained. “In case you needed any help with Bill.”

“You—I’ve been down here for hours. How did you manage that?”

“I had snacks in my sweater, and my cell phone to text Dipper updates,” she continued. “We didn’t want to leave you out here with Bill all by yourself. We know you wanted to do it by yourself, but—”

Her worlds trailed off with a sniff, as if she were trying not to cry. A series of actions that tightened Ford’s chest with affection. Dipper and Mabel had really put that much effort into looking out for him? Sacrificing a whole day to linger in the stairwell on standby, just for him?

“He—is Bill gone?” she guessed. “Is that why you don’t want me to come in without covering my eyes?”

A surge of guilt clamped itself around the aforementioned affection like a triggered beartrap around its prey. And how had he repaid their kindhearted efforts? By going and ruining his original plan and putting them in further danger.

His free hand returned to his face in shame, moving upwards to brush the hair from his eyes. Forget telling the entire family that he had screwed up, how was he supposed to explain to his teenaged niece that he had just put a bullet into the head of someone who looked almost identical to her twin brother? Even if she understood the reasoning behind why—how would she look at the person who had pulled the trigger? How did she look now beyond the wall that separated the rooms?

And not only that—

He finally forced himself to look back at the body—one that looked so small and frail against the mess around him. Without Bill to twist and contort the facial expression, or to grin that wide, horrible grin in such an unnerving way, the body really did resemble a regular, unpossessed child. A regular, unpossessed child with a bullet wound smack dab in the middle of his forehead.

And suddenly the arm on the counter was the only thing keeping Ford standing, his knees on the verge of buckling as a wave of nausea threatened to rise inside him. He was no stranger to having to pull a gun on Bill, and it was far from the first time he had pulled the gun on a child in general. There had been countless dimensions with eerie children who had taken pleasure in beckoning him from the far end of a hallway, or childlike beings who had found the act of being shot at as enriching and a means of play.

But this was far different from some random, ever-changing void child who giggled with delight as he shot bullets into its vast emptiness, or a pair of twins who only ended up being ghostly hallucinations that couldn’t actually be harmed by a gun. It was a real child, the real corpse of a child who so strongly resembled his great-nephew—

“Grunkle Ford?” Mabel called again. “Are you okay?”

Before he could answer her proper, a bright, blinking light to his left pulled Ford from his trance, and his gaze snapped to one of the monitors on the wall. “Oh no…”

“What? What’s wrong?” she called in a worried tone.

“The cryogenic tubes,” Ford said. “One of them’s been unfrozen!”

The sound of footsteps came up beside him, and he turned to see Mabel standing there with her hands over her eyes. “What does that mean?”

“It means—”

He looked to Bill’s lifeless body again, grimacing when he realized how close Mabel now stood to it. “Take a few steps backwards.”

While she obliged, he continued his original train of thought: “When I was…dealing with Bill, I slammed his body against the nearby control panel. He must’ve fallen against one of the buttons that unfreezes the pods.”

“Can you tell which one it is?” Mabel asked

“I’m not sure,” Ford said, turning to the monitor. “Let me just take a look—”

“—so that’s yet another thing you forgot to tell me—”

A shout from the control panel was cut off by a raspy inhale of breath and Ford’s attention snapped back to Bill, staring in disbelief as the previously-deceased body—the evidence to prove as much still littered across the control panel and surrounding computer—

—well, moved.

As the clearly-not-dead Bill continued to flail over the knobs and buttons, the ropes that had bound him—both in life and assumed death—went slack, and his body slid from the bloody control panel to the floor with a thump.

Ford stared at him, too dumbfounded to react. Bill stared in return—

“Grunkle Ford, what’s happening?” Mabel asked from her spot, hands still over her eyes. “I heard Bill’s voice, is he still alive?”

—before jolting up from the floor in a flash, shoving Mabel out of his way with a maniacal cackle as he hurried onwards to the security toom.

“Wha-woah!”

Not expecting the sudden oncoming attack, Mabel was easily knocked to the side—hands moving from her eyes in an attempt to catch herself before she hit the floor. Ford had instinctively moved to pick up his gun again before he could even think to question the logistics of the sight before him, but he was just as quick to Mabel’s side to offer her assistance instead. “Mabel, are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she reassured him as he pulled her back to his feet. “But what just happened?”

A beat, before she moved her hands to her eyes again. “Also sorry, I didn’t mean to stop covering my eyes.”

“That’s fine, you don’t have to keep covering them,” Ford reassured her, expression growing solemn again as he looked to the security room. “Bill’s escaped again, and we have to stop him before he gets out of the bunker.”

Mabel let her hands fall to her side again with a curious look. “What? But what about the tubes?”

“If any with specimens inside were unfrozen, the door lock should keep them sealed in the storage room for the time being,” Ford said quickly. “We can deal with them after we recapture Bill.”

“...But didn’t he—”

She turned to the splatter of blood that remained on the control panel, before her gaze fell to the abandoned gun that still rested on the floor. An action that made Ford’s chest tighten with guilt once more, just as tightly as his hand’s grip on the gun once he finally picked it up again. “It’s…a complicated situation,” he said slowly, slotting the weapon back into its holster. “The fact of the matter is that he’s still alive. And if he’s still alive, then restraining him is still our main priority.”

Mabel considered this with a thoughtful look, before clenching her fists with determination. “Well, alright then, let’s go get him!”

The two of them dashed into the security room, although Mabel did give pause at the doorway to glance back towards the bloody control panel one more time. Unbeknownst to her as she eventually turned to hurry after him, however—Ford’s blind rage had made him bring Bill’s body down on more than just the button to unfreeze one of the cryogenic pods.

He had also brought him down on the emergency release button to the door itself.

And as the two of them hurried through the tunnel after Bill, they missed as the reinforced steel door slid open to reveal one of the things that had been locked away for a reason.

A small thing, about the size and stature of Dipper Pines; one that blinked as it stepped through the doorway and took in everything before him. The blood on the control panel, the open doorway and deactivated security room—

—the rumbling of the building around him as the exit stairway once again ascended somewhere he could not see.

And with another series of blinks, one where his eyelids open and closed sideways in a noticeably-inhuman way, he fell to his hands and knees before making a mad dash for the open doorway.

— — — — — — —

Dipper wasn’t the best at parties.

At the very least, he didn’t always know what to do at a party that involved a lot of mingling with other people. A type of party that the Shack seemed weirdly dedicated to upholding, if the current one and the few from the summer prior had anything to say about it. 

At the latter, he’d spent a good portion of the night either fighting his clones for a chance to dance with Wendy—he’d already made a mental note to kick himself for telling her about that later—or had been too busy trying to get ahold of the FBI agents who had visited the shack, only to unleash a hoard of zombies on said agents and everyone else at the party.

Needless to say, his track record of actually attending a Shack party and doing regular party activities was a big fat zero. And he now found himself wandering aimlessly through the crowd of partygoers without any sort of idea on what to…well, do.

He slowed to a stop near one of the food tables with a sigh. Ugh, why had he let Mabel talk him into being the one to stay behind? Sure, she had raised a convincing argument about wanting to spend more time with Ford. Who wouldn’t want to spend more time with Ford? But between Dipper’s worries about her and his inability to act as more than a wallflower (could someone be a wallflower if the party was outside without any walls?), he was starting to wish he had pressed harder about being the one to go after Ford instead. 

He could’ve brought his journal along with him, maybe spent the day writing in the dark silence of the bunker stairwell by the light of his cell phone. Something he probably would’ve gotten more benefit out of than where he was now.

Speaking of which—

He once again reached into his pocket to pull out his phone with a faint hope that Mabel had sent some kind of update in the past five minutes. A hope that was dashed as soon as he flipped it open to reveal his empty inbox, leaving him with nothing more than a concerned sigh. “Come on, Mabel, what’s going on out there?”

A series of hearty shouts drew his attention towards another table to his left. One that had unofficially—but unquestionably—been dubbed ‘The Meat Table’, given the table’s contents and boisterous chants of “MEAT TABLE! MEAT TABLE!” from Manly Dan and the Manotaurs circled around it.

He cast another, more thoughtful, look at his phone. Well, if he was going to just wander around the party without any clear goal, he might as well keep his word about snapping pictures for Mabel.

He raised it up and aimed the camera at the group of meat devourers, the phone clicking with a flash before he turned towards another group. This time he was greeted by two unicorns conversing off to the side, one occasionally casting a judgy glare in Manotaurs’ direction when a bone—picked completely clean of any meat—happened to sail right onto their plates of enchanted greens. Click went the camera again as the two of them levitated their plates and trotted off in annoyed huffs.

He turned a third time—

“Ah, good evening, young Pines.”

—and suddenly his entire phone screen was taken up by the snobbish expression of Preston Northwest, causing Dipper to take a step back in surprise before he lowered his phone completely.

Beside Preston stood his wife, both dressed to the teeth in elegant formal wear—the specific shades of green of their wardrobe likely chosen with the intent of making the greens of the surrounding forest feel inferior at the sight.

“Hey, Dipper.”

And from behind both of them in a light-green gown of her own, Pacifica Northwest gave him a small, polite wave. Other than her outfit, she looked near-identical to her appearance from the last time Dipper had seen her—the only noticeable difference being the length of her bleach-blonde hair, which now rested at her shoulders as opposed to almost touching the ground.

Rather than acknowledge her father and mother—a move that was only half-accidental—Dipper waved to her in return. “Hey, Pacifica! Nice to see you again!”

“I—”

“Yes, yes, we’re all so pleased to see you and your family again,” Preston continued before Pacifica could get another word in, while he gently—firmly—guided her out to the forefront. “Especially after your heroic efforts of last year.”

He spoke the word heroic with the faintest hint of disdain, as if the word left a bitter taste on his tongue. However, his proper grin never faded as he looked to his daughter. “Isn’t that right, Pacifica? We’re all so impressed with how the Pines family managed to save the town from that dreadful demon with the horrible fashion sense!”

“The one you immediately tried to suck up to—” Pacifica began under her breath, before speaking more clearly. “I mean, yeah, we’re so grateful or whatever…”

Dipper raised an unconvinced eyebrow in Preston’s direction, but he cast Pacifica a small smile. “Well, like I said: it’s great to see you again,” he said. “And hey, don’t be so modest. You played a big part in helping save the town by being a part of the prophecy too, didn’t you?”

From beside her husband, Priscilla gave a snobby wave of her hand. “Oh-hoh~, you’re too kind,” she replied in her daughter’s place as well. “You can imagine how proud we are of our daughter for being a part of that fancy prophecy business.

“Quite right,” Preston agreed. “Even if the end result was a complete disaster, it’s the ability to slap the Northwest name on the attempt that counts! Quite an interesting attempt on your great-uncle’s part, might I add—”

He darted his head back and forth with feigned innocence. “Oh, and speaking of Stanford Pines on a completely random and naturally-approached whim, have you seen him around anywhere? I know I’d personally like to talk to such a clever man as he, maybe exchange some words—”

“Dad, come on,” Pacifica urged. “Do you have to try and rub elbows at every party that we’re not hosting?”

“Why, Pacifica, rubbing elbows at parties where we’re guests is the entire reason to show up at that party in the first place,” Preston explained, before pressing a hand to the side of his mouth and lowering his voice. “Why else would we dare show our faces at such a backwoods establishment such as this? …Quite literally, might I add—why on Earth did that man choose this spot out of anywhere else in the town?”

“Didn’t you sell the land to him at a bargain, dear?” Priscilla asked.

“Oh-hoh, that’s right,” Preston replied with an amused chuckle. “Well, I suppose even high-end college folks have to penny pinch where they can~! Guess not all of us are lucky enough to be born rich!”

It took a lot of self-control for Dipper to repress the look of disgust he so desperately wanted to cast at them, and he wasn’t entirely sure that he was succeeding in that regard. “Well, if you’re trying to find my Great-Uncle Ford, he might be a bit distracted until later in the party,” he said aloud. “But hey, I’m sure if you keep your eyes peeled, he might show his face at some point.”

His gaze fell back to Pacifica. “And while you do that, maybe Pacifica can rub elbows with me instead? You know, splitting up covers more ground and creates more connections?”

A shrug. “Right? Rich people care about that kind of stuff, don’t they?”

“Excellent idea,” Preston said, and nudged Pacifica forward further. “Pacifica, you stay here while your mother and I go mingle.”

With a huff, Pacifica reached down to straighten out her dress. “And by that, you mean try again with the fairies, right?”

Regardless of whether her remark was true or not, the words fell on deaf ears as the couple disappeared back into the crowd. “Sorry about them,” she said, turning back to him with a scowl. ”They only wanted to come so they could try and get on your uncles’ good sides. And, you know, to try and sell some property to the few remaining creatures in town that Dad hasn’t struck out with yet.”

“Property?” Dipper asked. “Don’t most of the supernatural beings here, like, live here for free already?”

He pressed a hand to his chin. “Also wait, why would he try and get on Stan and Ford’s good sides? Didn’t your family go broke because of Bill’s defeat last year? Feel like if anything, he’d want our heads for that.”

A pause. “...He’s not here to try anything with them, is he? You know, goad one of the big-time town heroes into a fight and then turning around and suing them when they knock him flat? Because I think we both know he is not going to win a fight against either of them.”

“First question, tell that to the ones actually willing to pay for it,” Pacifica explained with a dull hand. “As for the others, it’s kind of an extension to the first.” 

She made a wide gesture to the surrounding partygoers. “See, when a lot of the supernatural beings started relocating into the town itself, Dad saw a great business opportunity to make back the money he’d lost investing in Weirdness Bonds. Especially when the number of lumberjacks working for him almost tripled in size overnight, thanks to—”

The gesture shifted over to the Manotaurs’ table. “So he started selling land in town to any of the weird creatures willing to pay for it. Not a lot of them actually went for it, because, like—yeah, they were already here and a lot of them aren’t that dumb.”

A scoff. “Plus at first, Dad wasn’t all about working-with-slash-living-alongside all the ‘freaky magic people’, as he put it.” 

“You mean the guy who wouldn’t let the rest of the town join his fancy-schmancy parties wasn’t interested in dealing with the weird forest folk?” Dipper said, folding his arms in amusement. “I dunno about you, but that sounds pretty farfetched to me.”

“You should’ve heard him back when they were first settling into town,” Pacifica continued with a roll of her eyes. “He was all like ‘Ew, who’s letting all these weird, little bearded men run underfoot? Why is Bigfoot in the store? Ugh, the sclera on that flying eyeball is so tacky, it should get flying lasik so the rest of us don’t have to look at it!’ Bet he would’ve bribed Tyler to boot them all back outta town if we had the money at the time, it was so stupid—”

She shook her head. “But then one day this herd of unicorns were all like: ‘Hey, we also wanna be left alone by everyone else and we’ll toss money at you to help us do that!’ And apparently unicorn gold, is like—super valuable and junk, so Dad was all onboard and built them a condominium with an artificial spring and rainbow light fixture. And then the gnomes heard about it and wanted in too—”

“Lemme guess, they offered your dad the chance to make his daughter their queen if he built them a place?” Dipper guessed.

Pacifica shuddered in confirmation. “Listen, I appreciate all the help those little beardo-weirdos gave us last year with the robot-shack thing, but mushroom crowns and a bed made of moss are soooo last season—”

“No, no—no need to elaborate, I get it.”

“At the very least, Dad didn’t take them up on that offer,” she continued. “But he did build them a place on the complete opposite side of town just to keep them as far away from us as possible. And then there was a whole thing with the living video-game characters wanting to expand the arcade—you know a lot of them have coins, gold rings, exotic pets that fight each other—”

She rolled her wrist. “Yadda yadda, blah blah blah—anyway, word got out and enough of the ‘freaky magic people’ were eventually willing to toss their money at our family for a home inside the town limits that he started caring less about who they were and more about how much money he could get outta them.” 

An embarrassed shrug. “We’re still only at about a quarter of what our fortune was before, but Dad thinks continuing to invest in magical, rich clients is a great way to get us back on track. Sorry he’s not subtle about his plans.”

“Well, I never expect a rich jerk to be subtle about anything if he knows it can make him even richer,” Dipper said with a laugh. “And I guess actually building places for people who want to give him money isn’t the worst way to spend his time.”

Pacifica brought a hand to her mouth with a chuckle of her own, one that quickly shifted into a look of disgust. “Ugh, the first thing I do when we see each other again is go on and on about my family,” she said. “Sorry about that—”

“Once again, no need to clarify because I totally get it,” Dipper assured her. “And hey, at least it sounds like things are…kind of better than last year? I say hopefully?”

Despite the hand still covering her mouth, uncertainty began to creep into her features. “Kind of’s a...good way to put it,” she said. “It’s not all designer-brand sunshine and rainbows—”

The uncertainty faded into a small smile, one not even her hand could mask. “—but I guess not going designer is probably a good thing for my family, huh?”

“Heh, probably,” Dipper agreed with a wink. “Although when you guys go for the bargain-bin sunshine and rainbows, then I’ll really be impressed! Ooh, and get them with a two-for-one sunshine and rainbow coupon!”

“Eugh, don’t even joke about that! We’re not that desperate!”

Smiling wider, she finally lowered her hand to give him an playful nudge to the arm, earning a bout of laughter from both of them. “Well, as much as I love it when other people hang onto my every word, I’ve talked enough about myself enough,” she said. “What about you? How’ve you and Mabel been? I know you sent everyone letters and stuff, I just haven’t had a lot of time to sit down and read through the newer ones you two sent me.”

She raised a hand to her chin. “Although I’m pretty sure our mailbox is gonna smell like bubblegum forever, thanks to whatever Mabel added to them. I wanna guess actual bubblegum?"

“She took sticks straight out of the package and rubbed them on each letter before sealing the envelopes, then rubbed them on the envelopes themselves," Dipper explained. "Said she was going for an au naturale scent.”

Pacifica opened her mouth to respond, then closed it again with a hesitant expression as she further considered her reply. “Well, tell her it was, uh…thoughtful,” she finally said, smile unsure and awkward. “Plus I give her props for the correct use of the term au naturale. Although—”

She turned her attention from him towards the surrounding party guests, expression puzzled as she scanned their faces. “Now that I think about it, where is Mabel? Shouldn’t she be, like, doing some wacky, wild stunt in the middle of the party?”

“Did someone say Mabel?”

Before Dipper even had a chance to answer her question, a firm hand clamped down on his shoulder and spun him around on his feet to the smiling faces of Candy and Grenda. “Hey, Dipper!” Grenda said, pulling her hand back to give him a thumbs-up. “Great party!”

“Or it will be now that we are here!” Candy added with a delighted wiggle of her hips. “We are going to tear up the dance floor! …As soon as we find Mabel, of course!”

Grenda placed a hand over her eyes to scan the crowd. “Yeah, you’ve gotta help us out, Dipper! We’ve been trying to find Mabel since we got here with no luck! Got any ideas on where she could be?”

“I hope she is not hiding from us,” Candy added, hand to her chin. “Although a game of Party-Hide-And-Seek does seem like something Mabel would do.”

“Yeah, but why wouldn’t she tell us about it first?” Grenda asked.

“...Surprise-Party-Hide-And-Seek?”

“Touché, Can-day,” Grenda said, before turning back to Dipper. “Is she playing Surprise-Party-Hide-And-Seek? Don’t tell us where she is if the answer is yes, just tells us if that’s what’s going on.”

Her gaze moved past him and she tilted to the side to see Pacifica standing there. “Hey, Pacifica! Have you seen Mabel?”

Pacifica shifted uncomfortably at being addressed by the girls, attention falling to a random wrinkle on the side of her dress. “Uh, no, I just got here,” she said as she tried to smooth it out. “Actually, I was also asking Dipper about her and where she might be.”

“That would explain why we heard Mabel’s name,” Candy pointed out to Grenda. “Which allowed you an opening to that clever segue of yours!”

“Oh yeah, I was on the ball for that one!” Grenda boasted with a proud grin.

While Candy praised her further, Dipper remained rigid where he stood. His expression had sank the moment Pacifica had questioned Mabel’s whereabouts, only lowering further when the other girls had chimed into the conversation. “Uh, no, I don’t think Mabel’s playing any sort of hide-and-seek,” he said aloud, racking his brain for some kind of excuse to explain away her absence. “But I think she’s—she’s—”

Shoot, his brain wasn’t racking fast enough! And he could practically feel the familiar, clammy hand of anxiety creeping up his spine as the girls continued to patiently stare at him. Come on, Dipper, think! Coming up with a believable excuse shouldn’t be this hard! Soos had done a pretty good job of it earlier—

Huh. 

Hmm.

“Mabel’s off with Ford!” he started quickly, letting his words lead before his thoughts could catch up to them. “Like I told Pacifica’s parents earlier, he’s off doing something in private, and Mabel went to go help him out.”

A shrug. “I think they’re working on some kinda surprise for the party? …A not-hide-and-seek based surprise? I don’t really know all the details, but she should be back soon.”

It wasn’t entirely a lie. Not that he would’ve minded bending the truth more than that, but Mabel was off working on something with Ford and he technically didn’t know all of the details. 

The surprise element was a bit of a risk, but hey—Soos had already used it on Tyler and it was probably smart to avoid spreading too many different rumors about what they were actually doing. And despite the apprehension behind his words, they were apparently convincing enough to get a joyful laugh out of Grenda. “Aww, that’s so Mabel! Always trying to add a little something extra special to any party she can!”

“You were right when you called her an angel who goes the extra mile,” Candy agreed with a nod of her head.

Grenda thumped a fist to her chest. “I’m a Mabel genius!”

“Huh, wonder what kind of surprise they’re working on,” Pacifica pondered thoughtfully. “I mean, knowing Mabel, she’s probably got something super wild and we—er, uh, unique planned out. Like, I dunno, jumping off the roof into the mermaid tank or whatever…”

“Mermaid ta—wait, that reminds me!”

Dipper was quickly spun back around by a firm pair of hands and once again found himself inches from Grenda’s solemn expression. “Dipper! Important question!”

He blinked in surprise. “Uh…if you let go of me, important answer?”

“Right, sorry, I get hand-shouldery when I’m excited,” Grenda said, returning her arms to her side before she continued: “You and Mabel know about all the new stuff in town, right? Like how Wendy’s family’s got the Manotaurs, and all the new exhibits at the shack?”

“Ooh, please tell us Soos and Melody showed you them already!” Candy added excitedly. “Did Mabel see the mermaid tank?”

“I was getting to that, Candy!” Grenda said unhappily, before looking back at Dipper again. “Did she see the mermaid tank? Did she absolutely flip out at how cool it was?!”

“Yeah, Soos gave us the tour last night and she saw it,” Dipper confirmed. “She also snapped a couple of pics while Melody dived into it.”

“I knew it!” Grenda cheered, pumping a fist into the air. “I knew she’d love it!”

“You really are a Mabel genius and we could all learn from the wisdom you hold,” Candy agreed with another nod, before she peered around Dipper’s body at Pacifica. “But how did you know about the mermaid tank, Pacifica?”

Dipper looked back at her as well. “Hey, that’s a good question! Do you visit the Shack often or something?”

“No, I—”

Pacifica’s eyes shot wide open, and she quickly cut off her words with a loud clearing of the throat. “Uh, no, I just…come up here to stock the gift shop with Dad’s real estate brochures sometimes,” she explained. “Plus it’s kinda hard to live in town and not hear about the stuff that goes on at this old shack these days. Pretty sure at this rate, they’re gonna get it labeled as a historical landmark because of how important it is to everyone.”

She waved her hands. “And, you know, the part it played in the actual history of protecting the town last year, and junk.” 

“Oh, I’ve heard that too!” Candy said. “I know I’ve heard Soos say that if they ever do that, he plans on hanging up a special plaque up in the—”

“‘Scuse me, girls—”

Both Candy and Grenda let out a surprised yelp as a pair of strong Pines hands slid them apart, moments before their owner continued onwards through the gap. “Outta the way, old man with old man business to attend to—”

“Eww,” they replied in disgusted unison.

Any attention that Dipper might’ve had on the conversation immediately snapped to Stan as he trudged onwards past the kids, the Meat Table—”Hey, Stan! Grab a leg and meat up!” Manly Dan hollered at him through an overly-sized bone of meat, a request met with a wave of Stan’s hand and a gruff: “Later, Dan, I got a nonspecific excuse I gotta take care of first!"—and onwards towards the edge of the wood.

Specifically in the direction of the bunker.

Dipper took a few steps forward to follow after him, but Pacifica’s light hand against his wrist stopped him from going further. “Wait, you’re leaving?”

“Uh, sorry,” he said, pulling his arm back. “I’ve gotta go—check on that surprise that Mabel and Ford are working on! Top secret, gotta make sure everything’s running smooth—”

“But—”

She barely had time to get another word out before Dipper had disappeared into the crowd. Leaving the girls alone in an awkward non-silence, the partygoers’ voices around them acting as background noise to their ceased conversation.

“So, is it just me or did he get taller? And, like, less noodley?” 

Grenda was the first to speak again, her remark bringing a smile to Candy’s face. “Ooh, it looks like you are not just a Mabel genius, but a Dipper one as well.”

“I am on a roll!” Grenda said proudly. “To celebrate, why don’t we go over to the Meat Table and see if the Manotaurs will let us join them?”

“Sounds like fun!” Candy said delightedly. “I want to see if I can beat Womanataur in a rib-eating contest!”

She clenched her tiny fists together. “Candy can taste victory—and delicious barbeque—on the horizon!”

“Oh, now that I’ve gotta see!” Grenda said, with a look to Pacifica. “You wanna come too, Pacifica?”

“With Mabel working on a party surprise, we appreciate any help we can get to take those meat munchers down!” Candy said, fists clenched.

“Nuh-uh,” Grenda said, giving her shoulder a pity pat.

“What? What was wrong with my trash talk?” Candy asked.

“Just nuh-uh.”

Pacifica’s gaze lingered in the direction of where Dipper had gone for a bit longer, before she finally turned back to them. “Uh, sorry, what was the question?”

“Manotaurs, meat-eating contest, three of us,” Grenda said. “You in?”

“No!” she replied too quickly, taking a few steps back. “I mean, uh—no thanks, my parents would kill me if I got any barbeque sauce on this dress.”

“More for us!” Candy said delightedly, before taking Grenda’s hand. “Let’s go!”

The two of them hurried to the Meat Table in excitement, leaving Pacifica as the only remaining member of the previous conversation. Much like with Dipper, her attention lingered on the girls until they had seated themselves amongst the Manotaurs, before she finally turned her gaze to one of the pockets on her dress.

She reached a daintily-gloved hand inside and pulled out her cell phone, flipping it open in an instant and shuffling off to the other side of the crowd as she started typing out a text.

— — — — — — —

“Stan! Good to see you!”

“Save that feel-good feeling for later,” Stan called back to the random partygoer as he continued onwards through the crowd. “I’ve got business to take care of—move it or lose it again, Creepers!”

His warning fell on deaf—or death—ears as the Category 2 ghosts before him had no time to float out of the way before he came charging through their intangible bodies. Their forms dissipated for a moment before settling back to normal, although both shook a fist in Stan’s direction with aggravated shouts of: “Watch it, Pops!”

While Stan paid them no mind, Dipper was quick to reach them in his hurry to catch his great-uncle. And after making the wise decision to maneuver around them when he overheard them plotting a way to prank Stan back—”I’m tellin’ ya, the ‘Kick Me’ sign’s the way to go! He’ll never see it comin’!”—he continued to hurry after Stan with a shout of his own: “Grunkle Stan, wait!”

“Look, I get it,” Stan said, reaching the edge of the lawn with a gruff halt. “Everyone’s lookin’ to say hi to me! Just gimme ten minutes and I—”

He paused as his eyes landed on Dipper approaching him. “Oh, it’s you.”

Dipper also slowed to a stop at the edge of the lawn, any attempt to respond halted by him taking a sharp inhale of breath. “Hold on, just—” he gasped. “One second—”

“Yeesh, kid, you had the right idea with those pig lifts but don’t forget to strengthen the lungs, too,” Stan said. “What’re you doin’ here, anyway? Shouldn’t you be enjoyin’ the party?”

“C-could say the same about you,” Dipper choked out, before standing upright with a slow exhale. “Where are you going?”

“Me?” Stan asked. “Oh, I was, uh—”

He paused, casting a glance at the dark woods behind them. “Well, I was probably gonna head on down to that bunker of Ford’s,” he explained. “Figured if he hasn’t come back by now, then that one-eyed jerk’s probably causin’ more trouble than he’s worth and needs to get his butt into one of those freezy-pods asap.”

He winked at Dipper. “Also I figured it was time to give your sister a break from doin’ that job in my place.”

Dipper’s eyes widened. “You knew about—I mean, uh—” A pause. “What are you talking ab—”

“Save it, Dip,” Stan interrupted. “A little birdie in flannel spilled your plan.”

Dipper snapped his mouth shut again. “Okay, I know you told me and Mabel not to worry about all the Bill stuff, but—”

His words were cut off by the feeling of a hand plapped against the top of his hat. “Again, save it,” Stan insisted. “It’s not like anyone else was steppin’ up to help him out, anyway.”

He cast him a small smile. “Plus I guess askin’ the two kids who spent all summer pokin’ around these woods behind my back to stay outta all this Bill stuff was a pretty stupid request, eh?”

From beneath his ruffled hat, Dipper smiled up at him in return. “So, you’re gonna go get them, then?”

“That’s that plan,” Stan said, with another look towards the forest. “But hey, haven’t exactly been to the bunker myself in, uh—”

He paused to tick off a few fingers. “Alright, so I’ve never been to the bunker. Let alone at night, where I’ll have to trek through the dark woods, full of weird creatures who’d probably wanna eat me—”

A pause as he looked back towards the party. “Although I guess most of ‘em are already here and horfin' down tablefuls of meat, so that takes care of one issue.”

“Sounds like you could use a guide to help you out,” Dipper said, his smile widening. “If you don’t mind having a tag-along, that is.”

Stan smiled wider in return. “You know of any Pines who can get the job done?”

“I think I might know at least one, yeah.”

With a laugh, Stan returned his hand to the top of Dipper’s hat. “Come on, let’s go get ‘em.”

And with a shared nod, the two of them hurried off into the darkened wood—the sounds of the party growing fainter and fainter behind them.

— — — — — — —

Running was hard.

Running was so hard.

Bill could feel his stupid, human lungs attempting to claw themselves out of his chest as he ducked around the side of a tree to catch his breath. An action that also brought himself to his knees for a moment as his pathetic little legs gave out from the unexpected burst of energy.

Yeesh, couldn’t Birdbrain have stuck him in a vessel that could actually do things properly?!

Speaking of which—

Taking another deep breath to flood his lungs with desperately-needed oxygen, Bill yanked up the sleeve of his left arm. As Tangy had promised in the mindscape, the little speck was still right there on his wrist.

He stared at it for a few minutes in silence, the mix of emotions from before swelling again inside his gut. How could such a thing have been an afterthought for him, even for the length of a single day? He was always so used to keeping it close to him at all times, tucked safely in his—

“Thought it’d be easier to keep track of than your old storage method, which would’ve gotten lost very quickly if I’d given you one.”

A pause, before he pressed his other hand to the top of his head. Huh, guess if his human vessel had been given a hat, it would’ve been a lot easier to lose than his usual, floating top hat.

Ugh, he was really starting to hate how often he gave Tangy internal kudos for their ability to (mostly) think ahead. Bird-brained or not, they did at least seem to be on top of the more important things when it came to their game. If it wasn’t finding a workaround when it came to the limits of his vessel, it was the foresight to make sure that vessel wouldn’t die—

The hand atop his head drifted down to the spot on his forehead where he’d been shot, lingering for a moment as he tried to locate the bullet hole in the spot where all the pain had accumulated earlier—

—pain that, Bill only now realized, had ceased to exist since the moment he’d popped back to life.

Sure enough, the throbbing pain from before was gone, with no noticeable wound to be felt in the area where it had been before. And not just that, but holding out his hand in front of him revealed a clear lack of blood on his fingertips, as if the wound had never even existed in the first place. And a further inspection of his outfit revealed a clean, unstained suit of black and yellow—

—one he’d only just processed he was wearing, and gave an unimpressed double-take to by the overhead light of the moon as he pulled himself back to his feet. Really, Birdbrain, a suit? Yeesh, the duck dressed like they’d crawled out of a vat of Trademarked Sludge from the Radical Kidz With A Z!!! Television Network, and they couldn’t even splurge for a more creative outfit than some generic suit?

“There he is!”

The sound of Mabel’s voice in the distance snapped Bill out of his internal judgment, and he ducked back behind the nearest tree again. “That won’t work, Bill!” he heard her call to him. “You can’t hide behind a tree we saw you duck behind!”

Ugh, okay—thinking-fast time! He needed a way to get rid of Mabel, and assumedly Ford. If she was hot on his tail, there was no doubt that Ford was right behind her—especially given her use of the ‘we’ pronoun. He needed a way out of this, a way to get away from them.

Overall, he just needed something to—

His gaze fell to his still rolled-up sleeve on his left arm, the glowing speck sparkling bright against his pale skin. 

—help.

After casting it a suspicious look for a few seconds, then peering back around the tree—

“Cipher!”

—yep, Ford was with her!

After re-ducking back behind the tree, Bill gave the speck one last glance before slapping his palm against it twice. Heck with it, even if Tangy provided no help, at least he’d get a few extra seconds to catch his breath.

And as promised, the colors of the woods immediately conversed to one area in front of him—shifting into one, specific shade of orange before Tangy rose up and out of the forest floor. “Well, that was quick! What’s up, buddy?”

Bill narrowed his eyes at them. “Save it, Birdbrain. You said I could call you when I needed help, right?”

“I did indeed~!” Tangy confirmed with a grin. “What do you need help with? Did you happen to locate one of the pieces to the charm?”

“No,” Bill said flatly. “Right now, I need lungs that don’t feel like they’re about to pop or legs that can keep me going for more than a few seconds at a time. And on an extended note to that, I need to get away from Ford and Shooting Star before they can drag me back down to the bunker.”

He paused, as a thought occurred. “Hey, since they’re trying to infringe on my ability to play the game, would that mean you’re allowed to stop them?”

Tangy tapped their beak for a moment. “Hmm, it’s a good question. But I’m gonna have to say no.”

“What do you mean no?!”

“Well, they’re not trying to kill you,” Tangy pointed out. “Just freeze you—”

“Yeah, freeze me long enough for my timer to go out and for me to lose the game!” Bill countered. “Doesn’t that count for anything?!”

“It means that you still have a chance to get away from them,” Tangy pointed out. “For the time being, they’re obstacles. Which is a key part of the game, keeps things from getting too easy.”

“Thought you said players were mostly safe from obstacles in your dumb rules,” Bill said with a scowl. “By the way, don’t think I didn’t miss how you avoided elaborating on the specifics of that rule. We’re not just gonna gloss over that—”

“Either way, I can’t help you avoid them,” Tangy said, their smile widening. “But if it’s any consolation to you, there is something out there that might potentially distract them long enough for you to get away.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What did Stanford Pines smash your body against down in the bunker?"

“The—”

Bill’s eyebrows shot way up, a toothy grin of his own stretching across his face. “Oh, interesting.”

“There you go,” Tangy said with a shrug. “Of course, I can’t exactly take credit for that; it happened of its own accord. But hey, lucky break for you—”

Another beep of the watch on their wrist drew their attention away, and they clamped a hand across it. “Whoops, looks like time’s almost up for now~!” they said. “Guess if you need anymore help else today, you’ll have to figure it out on your own.”

“What do you mean?” Bill asked. “Thought you said I could just tap my wrist again and ring you up if I needed anything?”

“Hey, I also said there would be a cooldown period between uses,” Tangy reminded him. “Try again after midnight, we’ll see if that works!”

“Wait, I’m not done talking to you yet—”

Despite Bill’s protests, Tangy’s form once again sank back down into the earth, and both color and sound returned to the surrounding forest.

Sounds that included two pairs of footsteps hurrying rapidly towards his hiding spot.

With a huff, he took off in the opposite direction as quickly as his legs could carry him. Yeesh, for someone who was supposed to be helping him out during this stupid game, Birdbrain was proving to be extremely unhelpful.